Hogwarts: Mazoku
by Elthial
Summary: A field trip to a museum changes Harry and the world he lives in forever as a child Mazoku comes to play. Slayers Crossover
1. Prologue

**Title:** Hogwarts: Mazoku

**Author:** Elthial

**Summary:** A field trip to a museum changes Harry and the world he lives in forever.

**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter and the rest of the Wizarding world is owned by J.K.Rowling whilst Slayers is owned by ... someone. I claim no ownership of either pieces of intellectual property nor any disrespect to neither group of authors. Any original characters however are owned by me and I would like to be contacted if you want to use them in your own stories.

**Note:** This was originally a thread written up on Anime Addventure. As the vast majority of this thread was written by me I decided to also post it up on fanfiction, however it should be noted that this first prologue still contains elements of Demonhawks original chapter in order to keep the story making vague sense.

**Chapter Name:** Beginnings

The Multiverse.

That Sea of Chaos which stretches the eternities between the four great staffs and beyond. Known to a rare few as the Lord of Nightmares, Golden Lord, Mother of All and an assortment of other names. In the end names are unimportant, merely symbolic, all that is needed to be known is this 'entity' for all intents and purposes is god.

It's power unimaginable and unchallenged. An eternity ago it created four grand 'staffs' that rose out of its 'surface', if one must apply limited 4D constructs to something as incomprehensible as the Sea of Chaos itself. A top of each of the 'staffs' was a universe, something it created separate from itself, something it couldn't immediately control. An experiment perhaps, one which could last untold trillions of years.

But our story doesn't start in the vastness of itself but rather a place somewhat more... mundane.

A museum located within a city named London, on a sphere owned by an ancient force...

Wait. I keep getting ahead of myself. Lets start again.

As I was saying, it was a museum in London and it all starts with one school trip.

* * *

"Now if you would follow me through to here, you can see some of our loan exhibits, many of which are from the nation of Japan," announced the tour guide as he lead the group of children into the next room, which was filled with beautiful exhibits of eastern culture.

Not that the school kids even vaguely cared as the majority were bored out of their young minds, they'd been dragged around this dusty old museum for a few hours now and besides the dinosaur section, very little had caught there attention.

All except for one child in baggy clothing, whose bright emerald eyes looked in fascination at all the items surrounding him. Unlike many of the children on this school trip, he had never been to a museum before and so was taking every new sight in eagerly from behind his black round glasses. He was taken advantage of this trip to the full after all he wasn't normally allowed on field trips like this, in fact he was barely allowed out of his home neighbourhood by his aunt and uncle.

However today a sewage line had broken inside the school and instead of cancelling school for the day, the headmaster had arranged a fieldtrip to the London museum for those who could obtain permission on the the short notice whilst those who couldn't go would be sent home. Harry's second piece of look was that Miss. Figg's had gone away to visit relatives and aunt Petunia was attending a flower show, show his uncle Vernon had no choice but to let him attend the school trip.

They most certainly didn't trust him enough to leave him at home unattended.

Harry turned his attention away from a display of ancient Japanese Katana's and rushed to catch up the group who were just moving away from a display case that contained a large wolf's tooth, the diagram at its base showing a diagram of a wolf the size of a bus.

Harry stared at the abnormally large tooth and tried to imagine the wolf that it must have come from, it really must have been a gigantic creature. He turned around and walked back into the group who were now looking at a large glass case with several old staffs contained within it.

"Now continuing on our tour of ancient weapons and artefacts of Japan we see a selection of priest staffs including Tricksters priest staff, which according to various myths comes from another world," The tour guide spoke as he looked up and down the staff, "now whilst this is... unlikely at best, one must admire the excellent craftsmanship which has gone into this staff. Back in the..."

Harry attention was drawn away from the tour guide to the staff by some invisible force and as his eyes locked with the staff he shuddered as an icy cold feeling snaked its way down his spine. It was almost as if something was staring back at him from the staff, calling him in, calling him to come closer... the very thought of that causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. He quickly broke eye contact and shook his head to clear it before turning back to the tour guide who was standing a little bit away.

"Well this concludes the first part of our museum tour. Now if you would just exit through there, the museum restaurant is ready to serve you some lunch before we continue our tour," announced the tour guide pointing to a door behind him where some table and chairs could be spotted.

"Lunch! Out of the way freak!" shouted a voice from behind Harry.

He didn't get the chance to turn around as Dudley rushed past his cousin, only slowing down enough to give Harry a hard shove to the side towards the display case. Harry was caught off balance, stumbling violently as he tried and failed to stay on his feet before he fell over, his eyes closed and his hands out to absorb the shock.

Suddenly time and temperature in general seemed to freeze as he felt something pulse out from him and surprisingly something nearby pulsed back with an icy wave. Then everything came rushing back to normality and he was lying in a heap on the floor, the palms of his hands grazed from hitting the floor hard.

Taking a moment to fight against sudden nausea and a 'stuffiness' in his head, Harry sat up and leaned against the staff display counter checking his hands over and wondering why his head felt strange all of a sudden.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter Name:** From little acorns...

Mazoku are a totally alien race not only to humans, but to all other races. Being astral plane entities everything about them works in a fundamentally different way to physical life forms, for starters they feed on emotions and magic.

The other major difference is they have no set physical body; they have to manifest a body on the physical plane at no small expense of power if they are to interact with the physical plane. Fortunately or perhaps unfortunately, depending on your point of view, it is relatively easy for a Mazoku to manifest on the world of Cepheid and Ruby Eye thanks in no short part to the ambient magic and presence of the Dragon-God and Dark Lord.

The world known as Earth, home of Harry Potter, lacks not only a Dragon-God or a true Dark Lord but also has a much lower level of ambient magic, unnaturally low, so low that only certain humans can perform magic unlike Cepheid's and Ruby Eye's world where everyone can perform magic if they put the effort in.

Therefore, when Xellos first discovered this strange and hard to reach world from the astral plane, he had considerable problems manifesting himself on the world for any large period of time without being dangerously drained of power. A fish out of water is an unflattering analogue but a relatively accurate one in this case; there was not enough ambient magic to support him.

A lesser Mazoku would have given up but this was not the first odd little realm that Xellos had discovered and he was intrigued by whatever was holding the magic of this strange world at such low level.

He'd had time to scry the world and knew some of the humans had magical cores which contained much more concentrated magic than the ambient energies, enough to support a Mazoku easily enough. The problem then became the nature of a Mazoku, being astral plane entities they are essentially emotion and magic held together by a strong sense of self.

To admit that they need power outside of themselves is damaging to their sense of self and lethal to them; this is why Mazoku can not call upon the power of the Dark Lords as they would be dead before the incantation finished.

A problem then but not an unsolvable one, Xellos himself was an example of the solution. He had a portion of the Beast Master Zelas power thanks to the fact that she had created him as her servant, the creation of a similar servant Mazoku bonded to the first suitable magic user and Xellos himself should get around the problem of self.

This plan in mind Xellos reappeared back on Wolf Pack Island and retrieved the first suitable magical item, a mages staff left behind by a trespasser who no longer needed it. The purpose of the staff was simple, to provide a limited magical food source to the seedling Mazoku until it found its victim and to attract the victim in the first place with the items magical aura.

Xellos created the unique Mazoku seedling, bonding it to himself with a thread of astral energy before releasing the seedling into the staff where it fell dormant, waiting until a suitable host would come along to support it and its growth. That done Xellos dragged the staff through the astral plane as he traveled back to the strange world, before opening a portal above one of the human settlements in a cackle of violent energies that would become part of legend and releasing the staff where it fell to the ground in front of the eyes of the frightened villagers.

Now he would wait for the bonded seedling to awaken and grow in power, perhaps then he could discover exactly what was going on with that strange little world. Xellos smirked as he thought about the chaos a Mazoku could cause amongst an ignorant world before disappearing off into the astral plane to attend his master.

* * *

A human baby abandoned alone on a strange, inhospitable world would have perished but the seedling Mazoku merely slept, slowly feeding off the emotions of those nearby and the magic of the staff until it slowly started to fade away as hundreds of years past. 

The seedling Mazoku would have continued to sleep for another hundred years more as the magic slowly faded until it starved to death, never to awaken if it were not for a piece of luck and a broken sewage line that brought Harry Potter to it. Owing its existence to a broken sewage line was going to be a sore point to the seedling Mazoku in latter years but for now it was grateful as it was awoken by the pulse of magic that flared from the boy.

As Harry crashed against the display that contained its staff, the seedling Mazoku devoured the remaining magic in the staff and made an all or nothing jump into its new host, expending precious magical energy that it simply didn't have to spare. Still the gamble paid off as the seedling Mazoku curled itself around Harry's essence and rested in the back of his mind, immediately feeding off his resentment and anger towards Dudley.

Slowly, with agonizing slowness the seedling Mazoku sent out tiny tendrils deeper into the boy's mind and magic. The little seedling could hardly be called sentient at this point in time as it possessed less intelligence than an insect; it was however growing, slowly but surely, influenced by the mind of its host.

Harry himself shook his head from where he was resting against the staff display, wondering why his head felt strange, a fuzzy, dreaming like feeling and why his spine had felt like a shard of ice had just been ran through it. Sighing, Harry slowly got back to his feet and brushed some of the dust off his baggy clothing before walking towards the museum food shop. He'd rather not give uncle Vernon an excuse to shout at him for dawdling or wandering off or something similar.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Name:** The girl from dreams

She was the girl of his dreams.

She was his best friend, his companion, his partner in crime and in her unique way was someone who cared for him. She had showed him friendship and he had latched onto her in the same way a drowning man latches onto a lifejacket.

It was unsurprising how this came about; Harry had lived a lonely life.

Sure, he lived with the Dursleys but they barely tolerated his presence. To tell the truth the Dursleys seemed deeply aggravated by the mere fact that he existed and that they had to provide food, clothing, and shelter for him only served to stoke their anger towards him. Dudley would take any opportunity to punch him or kick him, possibly the only exercise the piece of lard ever did.

School provided little relief from the various torments of his home life and was in some ways much worse then staying at number four, Privet Drive. The other children continuously teased Harry about his baggy second hand clothes and broken glasses, and Dudley's gang was always chasing him, trying to beat him up.

He had no friends, Dudley's gang of bullies threatened anyone seen with Dudley's 'freak cousin', and they all backed down rather than face the gang's pudgy wrath.

To Harry his life was hell, but to an infant Mazoku it was a gold mine.

* * *

The infant Mazoku influenced by Harry's mind took on a female persona; it had lurked in the depths of his mind ever since that faithful day in the museum over a year ago, tweaking the occasional decision making process to its own ends. As it grew more powerful, it began jumping into people's dreams, twisting them into nightmares to feed of the resulting negative emotions, and the neighborhood experienced a sharp increase in nightly terrors.

The first time Harry ever truly became aware of her presence was after he had a sequence of similar dreams all involving the same girl. Harry was no stranger to repeating dreams; he regularly had dreams about what he suspected was the car crash that killed his parents, the flash of green light and the blinding pain on his forehead.

But what got his attention this time was how very real each dream felt, and whilst he had gone through with the crazy dream adventures the first few times (each of which turned into terrifying nightmares), he soon gathered up the courage to speak to the girl.

In his dreams, she always showed herself as close to human as she could. She had waist-length, luxurious, straight, metallic red hair that went well with the crimson dress she had been wearing at the time. Marking her pale skin were three red feral markings that ran across each of her cheeks, as if a wild beast had lashed out at her with its claw, and a variety of other feral markings that ran down her shoulders, arms and legs.

There was also a strange aura around her; it spoke of a wildness of the soul and predatory intent, but it was not until he looked into those elliptical, slit amethyst eyes of hers that he realized he was not dealing with something human anymore.

If she were older, she would have looked sexy, dangerous, and perhaps slightly terrifying, a look that the Greater Beast Zelas Metallium pulled off with ease. As it were, she looked to be ten years old, and so all she managed was a disappointing 'cute' look, predatory 'cute' to be sure, but cute nonetheless.

She tilted her head at him, watching him through curious eyes as she stood in the mists of dream space.

"Hello…" she purred in greeting.

"Err...Hi?" Harry offered weakly to the girl.

She smiled at him and looked him over lazily, something that reminded Harry of Mrs. Figg's cats.

There was an awkward pause as Harry squirmed under the girl's predatory gaze.

"Who are you?" Harry blurted out the first thing in his head, wondering about this girl in his dream.

The girl creature relaxed back in a chair that had not existed moments earlier.

"I am myself," she offered simply as she stretched her arms above her head, the dream space around them warped as she stretched.

Harry shook his head to clear it, disorientated by the shifting reality around him. He felt strangely out of control of his own dream, although he was beginning to wonder if this was still an ordinary dream.

"Erm…I meant your name," Harry said as he gathered his thoughts before he paused as something came to him.

"You do have a name, right?" he asked cautiously as he looked at the dream creature.

"Name?" she asked curiously, tilting her head sideways again as if to get a better look at him.

"You've no name?" Harry asked in disbelief, looking at the strange girl before him. She seemed friendly enough if you ignored those hungry eyes of hers.

The red haired girl closed her eyes and smiled at him.

"I haven't had much need for a name yet. This is the first chance I've had to talk to someone," she admitted softly, leaning back in her chair.

"Sounds lonely" Harry murmured, thinking about his life. "I haven't got anyone to talk to either."

She nodded in understanding and then opened her eyes, "Want to be my friend?" she asked slyly, a glint in her amethyst eyes.

"Really?" Harry asked excited at the prospect of getting a friend.

"Really," she assured him.

"Okay then," Harry agreed and introduced himself, "I'm Harry, Harry Potter."

She smirked at him, "I know."

"Oh…" he trailed off before looking at her, "are you going to pick a name?"

"Maybe…" she said noncommittally, "any suggestions?"

Harry thought about it, he was hardly an expert on girls names and whilst one name did come to the forefront of his mind, he doubted that anyone as wild look as her would appreciate being called a flower.

"No," he sighed dejected.

The Mazoku had been following Harry's train of thought as it bounced around his little head, she was thankful he had not bothered to suggest Lily as a name and a little bemused that he had correctly guessed she was not a girly girl.

She poked around in his brain for a moment looking for a suitable name, she had never bothered to find one before now, because she had previously been too young to understand and that she did not need a name before now. She found an acceptable name to herself quickly, the thought concept for that particular name linked to the name Lily thanks to the similarities between the two names and that aided in its discovery.

"Lilith," she announced to the boy.

She liked the name and its meanings, as they were suitably truthful to her. Lilith was a name that meant ghost or spirit of the night as well as having links to the Lilith of mythology, the mother of monsters and the betrayer of the gods. All of which represented her well as she was a monster and as far as she cared the gods could go hang themselves.

"Lilith?" Harry asked musing on the name, it was an odd name for a girl and one he could have sworn he had heard somewhere before. Forgotten by him, he had briefly glanced over the name a few times during his life, once in a baby name book and another time in a mythology book.

"Like it?" she asked him, watching his face whilst her mind skipped ahead to plan future events. She still needed to know more about this world, to free the magic and she only had Harry's life expectancy to do that in, if he died so did she.

"It's nice," Harry reassured the girl who seemed to be looking somewhat anxiously at him.

"Thanks," Lilith replied cheerfully.

There was another silence although this one was not as awkward as the initial one.

Harry was the one to break the silence, "Lilith… Who are you?" he questioned.

Lilith blinked, "I thought we went over this? I am myself. I can be no-one else," she answered in a vaguely philosophical tone.

It was Harry's turn to blink. "No. I mean… _What_ are you? How can you be in my dreams?" he felt confident enough to ask the questions that had been at the back of his mind the whole of this time.

"Ah, that. Harry, do you believe in magic?" Lilith questioned him, suddenly seeming deadly serious as she suddenly stared down at him with those dangerous slit amethyst eyes.

Lilith question completely threw Harry off track and he stammered out a reply whilst his mind raced with implications, "Err… I…Ummm…."

"Harry… I am your fairy godmother," Lilith suddenly announced.

Harry stared at her blankly.

There was silence for a moment.

"What?!" Harry shouted his voice elevating into a girl shriek towards the end.

Lilith lips twitched before she laughed at him. "Your face… Classic…" she managed to gasp out between her laughter, all inhuman features disappearing for a while as she laughed like any ten year old would.

Harry was somewhat put out to say the least as he watched his newfound 'friend' laugh her socks off.

After a moment or two, Lilith managed to pull herself back together again. "Just kidding about that Harry," she assured him as she walked up to him, savoring the wave of frustration and annoyance that radiated from him.

"So what are you?" he asked again, somewhat annoyed at the girl standing next to him.

"Not easily distracted? Hmmm… Well you see that's…" she started in a serious tone and then paused dramatically.

Harry leaned forward in interest.

"… a secret!" she finished with a smile, waving her finger at him.

Harry collapsed forward, anime laws of physics active in this dreamscape.

"Why'd you have to say that?" grumbled Harry from the floor.

Lilith tilted her head, "Not sure actually. Just had the strongest urge to say it," she explained with a shrug.

"Anyway…" she said continuing, "I'm a Mazoku"

Harry blinked at the name, not recognizing it. "Mazoku?" he inquired.

Lilith shrugged, "I don't know a lot. I have never met my parent or another of my kind but I'm a magical spirit that can live in dreams," she told him, technically not lying.

"Oh… so your not real?" Harry said disappointed, somehow thinking that magical spirits are not real.

Lilith scowled slightly at the notion of not being real, "Harry… I'm as real as you are."

Harry looked questioningly at her.

"Just because I am made out of magic rather than meat does not make me any less real," she informed him.

"But there's no such thing as magic…" Harry said, trailing off as if he unconvinced by his own words.

Lilith sighed in exasperated and decided to lay some ground facts down for him, she could sense that he already trusted her so it was a good time to cement that trust by revealing a few secrets that surrounded him.

"Harry, Magic is real. I have it and so do you," she told him bluntly.

"I have _what_?" gasped Harry.

"Magic. Mana. The mystical Mojo." Lilith replied as if bored but in truth was getting quite a kick out of Harry rapidly changing emotions.

"But I can't have magic!" Harry cried out.

Lilith floated in mid air and looked at him curiously, "Why not?" she asked plainly.

"Because I've never done anything magical!" he answered irritated.

The floating metallic red haired girl raised an eyebrow at him and stared at him with those amethyst eyes of hers.

"Oh really…" she drawled as she dragged up memories from the back of his mind and showing them to her, "Then what about the time you _Teleported_ onto the school roof when your cousin was chasing you… or perhaps the time when your hair grew back to full length _in less than 10 hours_"

"But… I… I…" Harry stammered.

Lilith rolled her eyes, "Why don't I just prove it?" she asked and before Harry had a chance to respond, the world lurched as everything went black.

* * *

Harry startled awake, sitting bolt upright as his heart pounded in his chest.

'What in gods name was that…? ' Harry thought furiously as he tried to control his heart, which was threatening to rip itself out of his chest.

'What a totally messed up dream…. ' Harry groaned as he collapsed back into his bed, ignoring the slight tinge in his heart as he thought about it not being real. He was just about to attempt sleep once again when a soft growl that reverberated around the small cupboard.

Harry froze.

Then with shaking hands he reached for a torch down the side of his bed and switched it on, shinning out over the rest of the cupboard.

The light revealed a large red furred wolf lying across the floor of the cupboard and as the light shined over its body, it looked up at Harry, staring at him with elliptical, slit amethyst eyes.

'_Hello Harry'_ a voice purred into his head, the back of his mind noted that the voice sounded exactly like Lilith, but the rest of him was too busy with a thousand questions that rushed through his head before a single thought came to him.

'She was telling the truth… '

He passed out.

Wolf-Lilith looked at the scrawny black haired boy, as he lay sprawled across the bed covers.

'_Humans… '_ Wolf-Lilith mentally muttered to herself before she rested her head on her forelegs.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter Name:** Next morning...

When Harry awoke the next morning, he noticed two things, first that his limb ached from the rather awkward position he had collapsed into and the second the red furred wolf otherwise known as Lilith was still lying across the floor of his cupboard.

Lilith in wolf form was currently sleeping as she lay with her head across her forepaws, occasionally she would shift and grumble before she settled down to sleep again. The whole thing had a strange domestic appeal to it and Harry had to resist the urge to run his hands through her admittedly beautiful red fur. She was currently in the body of a wild animal and he had no idea how she would react if he awoke her.

He watched the wolf sleep for a while, wondering about the strange girl/creature he had met last night, questions about her abilities and everything about her running through his head. He quickly realized that pondering about Lilith was next to useless as the only one who knew the answers was her.

Harry sighed and slipped out of bed, trying to get dressed in the small, enclosed space without disturbing the sleeping wolf. Not an easy task and he almost fell on her when he was pulling his socks on, only managing to catch himself at the last moment by grabbing onto the wall. He vaguely pondered how he was going to get out of the cupboard without waking Lilith up but that point became moot when she disappeared without a trace the moment he took his eyes off her to look under his bed for his shoes.

Shrugging Harry stepped out of the cupboard; strangely enough, he was becoming more and more used to the odd events that occurred whenever Lilith was around. Besides, he did not want to try to explain to the Dursley's why he had a red furred wolf in his cupboard, Uncle Vernon might have a coronary.

Aunt Petunia had already woken up and was cooking breakfast for the entire family as she usually did in the mornings. Harry pushed his round sellotaped glasses further up his nose as he entered the kitchen and sat down at the kitchen table; Uncle Vernon followed him in a few moments later.

Uncle Vernon grumbled something that sounded vaguely derogatory as sat down at the table. Harry normally would not have paid much attention but the grumblings perked his interest when he noticed that none of them involved him. Looking up Harry nearly fell off his chair in shock when he saw his uncle.

Uncle Vernon looked terrible, he had bags under his eyes, and it looked like he had not gotten a single wink of sleep last night. From the way, he was guzzling coffee you could tell he probably felt as bad as he looked.

Harry shook his head and leaned back as Aunt Petunia dropped a plate in front of both him and Uncle Vernon before she walked out of the kitchen.

"Duddlykins! Breakfast!" Aunt Petunia's shrill piercing voice came from the bottom of the stairs.

There was a deep moaning noise that sounded like cross between a dying pig and whale before the ceiling shook as something heavy came thumping down on it, signaling that Dudley had gotten up. Harry was mildly surprised that Dudley had not come through the ceiling before now but it became obvious that the house was sturdier that it first looked even despite the abuse it suffered on a daily basis.

Reminded about Dudley, Harry began wolfing down his food as fast as he could in an attempt to be finished and out of the house before Dudley. That way he could be at school first and avoid the scenario of Dudley's gang chasing him all the way to school.

Harry finished devouring his food in a record time that only Ranma Saotome could rival before dumping his plate and cutlery in the sink just as Dudley came waddling into the kitchen. Harry nimbly ducked Dudley's fist and slipped past the fat boy, grabbing his school bag as he went past it in the hallway before he headed out of the door.

"I'm off to school now!" Harry called out as he began closing the door, his only reply was a deep confirming grunt from Uncle Vernon.

As Harry walked off towards school at a brisk pace (as he did not want Dudley's gang to catch up with him), he began thinking about what Lilith told him about him having Magic. He could not deny that each of those incidents she had mentioned was anything other than magic, they were impossible to explain in any other way, but he wondered how magic worked and what it meant to him.

Could she teach him?

* * *

No matter what he tried, Harry could not concentrate on his classes; his mind was constantly drifting back to magic despite his attempts to stay focused. He just wished that he'd had more time to ask questions to Lilith last night, and then he would not have be in this mess. Although sheepishly he did admit to himself that, it was his fault for passing out. 

It was even worse that he could not talk to anyone about it; he knew the Dursleys hated magic, and they practically had a fit every time he mentioned it. In fact, they had a fit every time something out of the ordinary happened. They were hardly the most adaptable of people.

As for other kids at the school, they would just think he was playing some sort of weird game or laugh at him and call him crazy. There was absolutely no one he could talk to that would understand.

A hand slamming down on his desk distracted Harry from his thoughts and he looked up to see Mr. Wallgate, his Maths teacher glaring down at him.

"Well, Mr. Potter as it seems that you believe you don't need to pay attention in class, perhaps then you could tell us the answer to the question on the board?" The teacher questioned, irritated that Harry was not paying attention. In the teachers mind school was a place to learn, not to daydream.

Harry looked over at the whiteboard and despaired, there was a whole list of question on the board, almost fifty of them. Worse yet, he had not been paying attention and did not even know which one he was suppose to be on.

If he answered the wrong question then the teacher would know he was not paying attention and then throw him in detention, yet if he did nothing then the teacher would also know he was not paying attention and he would get a detention.

Behind him, he could hear the kids sniggering and Harry sighed, about to resign himself to his horrible fate of missing lunch hour once again.

'_Question twelve and the answer is forty-two.'_ The rapidly becoming familiar voice of Lilith echoed in his head.

'**Thanks' **Harry thought loudly in his head hoping that she could hear him, he was a little uncertain of this form of communicating.

That done Harry turned back to the teacher with a tiny smug grin and gave the answer. "Forty-two"

The teacher pursed his lips. "That's correct Mr. Potter, but in future pay more attention to class rather than daydreaming." He told Harry sternly before walking off to the front of the class to continue his droning about the wonders of long multiplication.

With the teachers attention distracted Harry gave a quick look around the classroom, checking all the corners and looking out the windows, but could not spot Lilith around anywhere much to his confusion.

'**Lilith?'** Harry tried calling out mentally to her.

There was a long pause and Harry was beginning to think she had left when a voice answered.

'_Yeah?' _she responded with a tone of curiosity in her mind voice.

'**How'd you know the answer?'** Harry asked simply, straight to the point.

'_Well…'_ Lilith's mental voice started _'… there is this subject called Mathematics and amazingly, it helps you solve sums and…'_

'**NOT LIKE THAT!'** Harry shouted mentally, something that felt very silly to do.** 'I meant how can you see the board? I don't see you in the room…' **

'_I'm a magical spirit remember?'_ Lilith reminded him _'I'm on the Astral plane at the moment and whilst I can observe the physical world, the opposite is not true.'_

'**Oh…'** Harry answered, thinking about that. **'So you can see people but they can't see you?'**

'_You're getting now…_' Lilith answered pleased.

'**So why are you following me around then?'** Harry asked curiously.

'Suspicious aren't you?' Lilith asked amused._ 'Well, I wouldn't be much of a friend if I just up and left, now would I?'_

'**I Guess not'** Harry mused mentally.

'_Guess not? Hmph…'_ Lilith's reply seemed somewhat off put. _'Nevermind, I'm going off now to visit a museum. You had better concentrate on your schoolwork or you'll never learn anything.' _

'**Why are you going to a museum?'** Harry asked bewildered.

'_Why does anyone go to a museum?'_ Lilith questioned back. _'To see old stuff! Bye!'_

Harry got the distinct impression that she was annoyed at him and that she had left quite a bit out of that explanation.

'**Hey! Whoo!'** Harry mentally called and waited for several long moments.

There was no response and Harry felt quite silly shouting in his own mind so he stopped, figuring that she had already gone off to that museum and was no longer listening to his thoughts. Well, that what he assumed was going on, it was somewhat difficult to keep track of someone who was invisible or on another plane of existence.

Sighing once again, Harry settled down to the work in front of him with some difficulty, schoolwork seemed so boring after being around her; Lilith was odd, magical and a mystery.

A thought came to him and he winced, he had forgotten to ask her more about Magic!

'**Damn…'** Harry thought in annoyance as he rubbed out one of his answers with more force than was required. **'Oh well, I'll have to ask her later.'**

* * *

Contrary to Harry's beliefs physical distance did nothing to protect his thoughts from Lilith, her very essence wrapped tightly around his soul, magic and mind. She could feel his every thought no matter where she was in the world and she was permanently connected to his magic; it was that lifeline that allowed her to exist on this frankly hellish world of almost no magic.

She had grown more powerful recently and over the last month or two, she had finally been strong enough to escape the prison that had been Harry's mind. The ability to invade multiple peoples mind and gain access to their negative emotions was allowing her to grow rapidly in power.

Well, her power growth was rapid compared to her previous gains in power anyway.

She was still feeling distinctly underpowered though, manifesting in the physical world was difficult and if it was not for the fact she was of the Beastmasters line, she would not have been able to manifest at all. Fortunately, the powers that filtered down from the Greater Beast to Lilith, allowed her to manifest animal forms for significantly less energy expenditure than any other Mazoku would have suffered.

This was a good thing because she was so underpowered that she could not even get her astral or monstrous forms to manifest in the physical world. There were probably ghosts who had more power than she did, truly a depressing thought to the young Mazoku.

She needed magical energy desperately, whilst Harry's magic core sustained her, it did little to fuel her growth, and although growing in power, she was not growing fast enough. Some previously unknown instinct was screaming at her to gain more power if she was to survive, she had the feeling that there were dangers rapidly approaching, and if she were to match them then she would need to be stronger.

Therefore, like a good little Mazoku she hatched a plan.

During her time hibernating in the staff she had noted other items of magical power around her, but at the time had lack both the intelligence and the ability to do anything about it. Now that she was more powerful, she had returned to the museum in order to drain the items of their magical power. She was pleased to note the majority of the items were still at the museum, although some had disappeared, taken elsewhere.

As she looked over the magical items from the Astral Plane, she did the equivalent of a sigh as they reminded her of other concerns. She really needed to find out more about the magic of this world, she KNEW that something restrained the magic of this world. It was one of the few things that her parent had imprint into her during her creation but she did not know how someone had restrained the magic.

Her future success depended on discovering whatever was causing that problem and destroying it, preferably in the most violent way possible.

After she drained these items she would have a look around the museum for any clues, although to be honest she wasn't very hopeful, most of the humans in this world did not consider magic real and so would not store detailed information on something they considered fiction in this building of past facts.

What she needed was a library that specialized in magical information.

'_And those places are oh so common…'_ Lilith thought with a grumble as she latched onto the power of a sword and began draining its magic.

It was not as if anyone was going to notice if a few items lost their magic, especially since they do not know they are magical in the first place.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter Name:** Fear the Raven

That had been a spectacular waste of time.

There had been _nothing_ in the London museum that could possibly point out the cause for the magical limitations this world suffered, National History Museum her ass. Lilith had even looked through all the little cupboards and boxes in the non-public storage sections of the museum in the hope that she might have found something there.

As it was, there had been little of any interest to her, although she did find a few interesting books and a manuscript which her instincts instantly told her that they were worth flinching. They had all laid in a dusty battered box in a disused cupboard, Lilith could only guess that it had been ten or more years since anyone had even entered the cupboard, let alone look at these pieces of literature.

The only reason she had been encouraged to take these books is that they reeked of magic, _black_ magic. Obviously once upon a time, there had been other Mazoku on this world and she felt somewhat reassured that she was not the first to dwell in this strange place.

Lilith teleported the books back to the Dursley's house, up into the attic to be specific. She had been setting up a little 'den' for herself there and had already started to horde a small treasure trove of semi-precious items. Lilith would have rolled her eyes if she had manifested them, the way she was continuing she was going to turn into a dragon.

She shuddered at the blasphemous thought.

A single thought had her far away from the museum and above the city of London as she manifested herself the body of a raven. Flapping her wings a few times, Lilith caught an air current and idly rode it whilst thinking.

Her human pet was messy, wearing those oversized secondhand clothes and those atrocious sellotaped milk bottle glasses. As someone from the Greater Beast lineage Lilith valued beauty, elegance and aesthetics, Harry lacked in these values more than a little.

Still he was not completely hopeless, that odd little magic core of his was growing in strength to match her increasing drain on it. His body was also slowly adapting to her presence, changing to better suit there symbiosis and although Harry had not noticed anything, Lilith had noticed the increased subconscious discomfort people felt around him.

He was leaching magic and any other energy from his surroundings to help supplement his magical core on which she was placing a substantial drain. It was nowhere near as bad as it sounded; humans just were not adapted to absorb large amounts of energy so he could not drain anyone dry just by touching them. The most that would happen is that people would feel cold and unnerved whenever he was around or at least they would if she did not teach him how to stop it.

Lilith flapped her wings a few times to gain height and tilted her avian head as she thought about the issue. It was probably a bad idea to teach him how to cease his subconscious absorbing of magic or even tell him about it, the boy was lonely and would cease absorbing if he thought it would help him gain friends. The damage that he could do to his magic core would most likely be irreparable and she needed that magic.

It all came back to that cursed magic restriction that this world suffered, if she found out who had placed it then she was going to ensure the bastard suffered for making her life more difficult.

At least her power had grown ten fold since she absorbed those magical items, perhaps even more and she was no longer as weak as a Brass Demon. Perhaps now she would be able to look past that damned protective barrier of love that prevented her from looking at that intriguing magic bond Harry had connected to his soul and at the yummy hateful soul on the other side.

She deserved a treat for all her hard work.

The demonic raven landed on a lamppost and looked into the front window of a shop that contained children's clothes, its slit amethyst eyes narrowing evilly.

_'But for now… lets go shopping… '_

* * *

Harry sat under the shade of his favorite tree as he slowly worked through his homework; he did not have a lot, as the majority of teachers in his school did not bother to set any. He enjoyed sitting in the park far away from the Dursley's with just him, the grass, the sun, and the occasional laugh from the children playing football on the other side of the park. 

This was a time of relaxation for him were he didn't have to worry about what anyone thought of him and he didn't have to try dodging Dudley's gang, they were usually too busy playing computer games up in Dudley's room.

As he watched other kids play with there parents, Harry idly wondered what his life would have been like if his parents had not died. Would they have gone to the park every day?

Moreover, would he have had any siblings?

Harry pondered over these thoughts with the precious little he knew about his parents, which was their names pretty much; he only had small bits of information about them. He knew that he looked like his father because Aunt Petunia would often say he looked like a vagabond as his father did. He also knew that his mother had red hair but that was about it.

It felt almost disgraceful to know so little about the people who brought you into the world.

Harry shook his head and tried not to think such depressing things.

He watched a man play fetch with a dog, the scene reminded him of Lilith in wolf form, and he idly wondered how her trip to the museum was going.

* * *

Lilith cackled madly on the top of a hat rack in raven form as fires burned around her and humans scrambled around in fear. She took off again, flying down to sweep at a customer with her wing before pulling up, smashing through a light and sending sparks flying everywhere. 

That would teach them.

She was supreme! Let mortals tremble in fear before her!

She was the all-consuming one! She was the terror that flaps in the night!

She was… on fire?

_'Hmmm… ' _Lilith thought annoyed as she landed on the top of a shelving unit and shook the flames out on her right wing.

She looked back up to see one of the shop assistants heading her way with a broom, obviously intent on attacking her.

Lilith's eyes gleamed.

* * *

Harry sighed, well no matter where Lilith was she was probably having more fun than he was. Harry could remember the last time and only time he went to a museum, it was after that broken sewage pipe incident that stank to high heavens, he quite liked museums. There was so much history that you could almost breath it in and to Harry, an orphan with no links to his past, history was something special. 

Something he did not have.

A flicker came across his mind and he remembered that display of the staffs, one in particular, the trickster's staff. He remembered the icy cold presence that emanated from it but something was tickling at the back of his head, he knew that presence. He had felt it recently, he knew he had but where had he felt it?

Harry did not have the chance to remember where he had felt the presence before as something caught his eye. Turning towards it, he suppressed a groan; it was Dudley and his gang coming into the entrance of the park. Worse yet they seemed to have spotted him, Harry was about to grab his bag and run off when he remembered that the other park entrance was closed because the road works that were taking place outside of it.

That left the only entrance or exit to the park as the one that Dudley had just come in and from the how Dudley had placed guards at the gates, it looked like he knew it too.

Harry picked up his bag and backed away from the approaching boys, there was not anywhere to go, but he hoped to give them the run around for long enough that they would get bored and go away.

"Hey Freak! We want words with you!" bellowed the fat lump that was his cousin Dudley.

"I'm sorry to disappoint then!" Harry retorted as he backed further away the group.

Dudley grinned nastily as he wobbled forward. "That's what I thought." He said before gesturing to his mates.

It was then that Harry noticed the dog brought by one of the other boys, a large Rottweiler.

'Lovely, Spike." Harry thought bitterly as he looked at the dog, if he ran the dog was going to chase him down and Spike was downright rabid at times, Piers had trained his dog to attack. He seemed to find it hilarious.

Harry's preoccupation with the dog cost him as one of Dudley's gang snuck around behind him and then punched him hard in the back of the head, sending him tumbling to the floor, his glasses going flying off somewhere.

Harry gasped on the floor, trying to recover from having his breath knocked out of him when a shadow loomed over him.

"Well, well. Not so quick now are you?" Dudley boasted before bursting into mad laughter. His gang looked between themselves before joining in.

"Maybe this will teach you to dodge your punishments!" Dudley proclaimed before grabbing a fistful of Harry's baggy school shirt to haul him up before punching him solidly in the eye.

Through his blurred eyesight, Harry could vaguely make out the shape of his cousin pulling back his fist for another go and he shoved his hand out in an attempt to stop Dudley's fist. The result was unexpected as he felt something deep inside of him flow out, down his arm and out of his palm, Dudley screeched as he was blown head over heels by an unseen force, rolling to a stop about 12 yards away after bouncing twice.

So stunned was Harry that the only thing he could do was stare at his hand in shock before the rest of Dudley's gang descended on him with fists.

* * *

Lilith paused for a second in her systematic assault on the shop, its staff, and its customers as she felt a surge of magic come from Harry. She tried to peek through his thoughts but Harry was currently in shock and was not making much sense even in his own mind. 

_'Typical… '_ she thought peeved as she hung on tenaciously to the hair of the shop assistant and pecked viciously at her whilst the woman was trying her damned best to get rid of the bird by screaming and flailing about.

All the fear generated by the people in the shop was a pleasant meal but she had better get back to her pet and ensure that he did not die on her or something.

With a mental sigh, Lilith flapped her raven body's wings and took off; the only oddity to this scene was that she was still hanging on to the poor shop woman's hair. The woman was now sounding like a banshee as Lilith dragged her into mid air using her claws that had caught the woman by her hair; the rest of the people in the shop also suddenly became vastly more fearful as they saw the obviously unnatural raven.

Lilith reveled in there fear and terror for a moment before she launched the screaming banshee woman out the shop window, sending the poor woman through the glass window and out into the road. Lilith then dived bombed a group of customers for one final snack before teleporting the clothes she'd selected to her 'den' and herself to Harry's current location.

Behind her, she left bedlam, chaos, and destruction as clothes burned and people milled about screaming about demon ravens. The fallout of a Mazoku shopping trip…

* * *

Lilith was not exactly sure what to expect when she arrived, she was uncertain of the circumstances leading up to Harry using that surge of magic. She was therefore quite irritated when she teleported into the park as a raven and looked at the scene before her, two boys were beating up her pet human. 

The demonic raven grinned; well she would just have to teach them not to touch her things. _'Silly humans…. '_ She crowed in her own mind as she leapt into the fray.

The first boy was startled as a bird swooped down the sky and began attacking his face, making the most awful racket in the process. He tried to swat the thing away or get away but the raven was tenacious and did not let up its attack.

Seeing the trouble his friend was getting into, the second boy ignored beating on Harry in order to help his friend with this crazed blackbird. Seeing that she was getting out numbered Lilith swatted the other boy with her wing, sending him flying the thirty yards to the pond where he splashed down. Pressing her attack Lilith drew some of the Beastmaster's power and mentally called upon all the nearby birds to help her in her attack, overkill to be sure but she was in the mood for mayhem.

The air was silent for a moment before it became chocked full of hundreds of killer local birds ranging from sparrows to blackbirds to robins to seagulls, and so forth. They dived, squawked, pecked, and swarmed over the five boys in Dudleys gang, completely relentless in their attacks despite the boys screams and cries.

The birds swarmed so heavily that it became difficult for Lilith to fly so she teleported back to Harry, who was painfully getting up again with a number of new bruises and cuts visible on his body. She could do nothing to help with those injuries; she had no talent in healing magic being a Mazoku and all.

Something attracted her attention and she looked up.

Spike the rottweiler trotted over to the pair and growled menacingly at them, somehow working out that they were responsible for the attack on its master. Lilith tilted her avian head to regard him; it was an odd sight to see a much bigger dog stare down this seemingly fearless raven.

Lilith tired of this game quickly and snapped forward, transforming into a huge wolf that dwarfed the rottweiler. Spike yelped and fled the park as fast as he could.

Dudley's gang also had given up the one sided battle against the army of birds and was fleeing as fast as they could screaming, including Dudley who waddled like an oversized penguin behind the rest of the gang. The birds did not let up though, still viciously attacking flesh and clothes as the gang disappeared from Harry and Lilith's eyesight.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter Name:** The fear of (god) Mazoku

The large red furred wolf snorted as the gangs voices faded into the distance before she turned to face Harry who was sitting on the ground.

_'Are you okay?'_ Lilith asked him curiously, looking him over and giving him a good sniff.

Harry groaned at the attention before crawling over to his glasses. They were unfortunately smashed from where they had landed on the ground and it looked like someone had stood on them. Whether that was deliberate or if the boys had trodden on them during the confusion during the fight, Harry did not know and did not really care.

What mattered now was that he was as blind as a bat without his glasses.

_'You know… Technically bats are not blind.'_ Lilith pointed out, hearing his thoughts.

Harry scowled at her.

She walked over to him and nuzzled his stomach. _'Now… are you okay?'_ She asked again, if he did not answer her this time, she was going to bite him.

Harry sat back, rubbing his hand over his black eye and sighed. "Yeah, I'm… fine."

Lilith lay down next to him and laid her head on her forepaws again. _'You're a really lousy liar Harry.' _ She commented mildly.

"Fine! I feel fucking crap! Happy?!" Harry snapped angrily at her.

She was happy actually, Harry' anger gave her a nice surge and she would have purred, but lupine vocal cords were not really designed for purring in mind.

Harry stayed angrily for a moment before sighing and looking down, getting depressed at shouting at his friend. "Sorry about that." He mumbled.

Lilith remained where she was, which was lying next to him. _' I don't mind'_ She told him truthfully.

"I want to thank you for helping me." Harry said turning to face her seriously.

Lilith looked up from her position and tilted her head at him, she gave him a wolfish grin (or was that a wolfs grin?). _'Don't worry about it. Friends are meant to help each other.'_

"It was still really brave…" Harry said wistfully.

Lilith almost chocked on her own tongue. _'Harry, it was hardly bravery I outmatched them that severely. Besides, it was more for loyalty than bravery that I beat them down, bravery is such a dumb concept.' _

"Knights are brave…"

_'Yeah and look where it gets them… eaten by a dragon.' _

"St. George killed the dragon." Harry pointed out as if that proved everything.

_'Yes, he did didn't he?' _Lilith mental voice giggled amused, much to Harry's confusion.

"Your weird Lilith… really, really weird." Harry stated.

The wolf looked at him oddly. _'Your one to talk…'_

Harry snorted. "At least I don't turn into animals."

_'Give it time… '_ Lilith mental voice muttered almost too low for him to hear.

"What?"

_'Nothing' _Lilith answered cheerfully. _'Come over here and let me get a look at your face'_

"Why?" Harry asked curiously.

_'Just do it'_ Lilith instructed him.

Harry rolled his eyes, wincing from the pain in his left eye and then moved in front of Lilith, wondering what she wanted.

Lilith lay still and stared at him for a long while until eventually Harry grew bored.

"Why do you want me in front of you?" Harry asked bored of being nose to nose with a wolf, one that was much bigger than the one that had been in his cupboard. The novelty had worn off and so had the fear of the potential wild beast.

_'For no reason really.'_ Lilith replied cheerfully, ignoring the wild beast comment and Harry twitched in annoyance.

Lilith stared at him for a moment longer before mentally speaking up again, it was time to fix up her pet human. She wanted a healthy one, not one with such lousy disabilities.

_'Harry? Do you want me to fix your eye sight?'_ Lilith asked curiously.

Harry's eyes widened. "You can fix my eyesight?" He asked the wolf eagerly, he had lived with poor eyesight for all his life and had to use those huge glasses to see properly. Of course they always teased him for having those huge milk bottle glasses, Harry doubted anyone could wear them and look good.

_'Yep, your eyes will be like mine… except green… and you'll be able to see in the dark a lot better than you can now.' _Lilith agreed informatively, it would have detrimental to his trust in her if she did not tell him about the fact his eye shape might change.

Harry thought it over, it would mean that he would have odd eyes but then again everyone thought he was a freak anyway and it did mean that he would be able to see properly.

"Will it hurt?" Harry asked cautiously.

_'Nope' _Lilith replied, which was somewhat of a pity she thought.

"I do it then!" Harry agreed, looking over at the blurred shape that was the wolf.

_'Neat'_ Lilith murmured into his mind as she looked through his eyes whilst focusing her power on placing the enchantment on his eyes. The slit eyes was a dark gift that the race of Mazoku bestowed on their servants or allies, it had huge applications since one can see through the dark and any illusion.

Harry watched as the blurred red figure that was Lilith slowly came into shape and became clear. Lilith looked at him curiously as he looked around the park in what she hoped was amazement or maybe she had messed up and he was seeing thousands of flying pink elephants. Checking Harry's mind revealed that it was the former much to her relief, she did not need him getting mellow on her now.

_'So? What do you think?'_ Lilith asked for his opinion, even though she already knew it.

Harry was close to tears.

_'And not the unhappy kind'_ Lilith thought crabbily to herself, this was going to be her good deed for the millennium and anyone who tried to get more out of her would be mutilated!

"T-Thank you…" He got out trying to hold back his reaction.

_'Those eyes look pretty cool if I do say so myself' _Lilith stated as she looked at the bright green cat slit eyes. _'It'll look good with some of the clothes I bought for you…'_

Harry froze.

Lilith paused cautiously; his mind was blank so she was not sure what he was doing.

Harry suddenly leapt at her and enveloped her in a crushing hug.

_'Oxygen! Gawh! Happiness! Love! Eeek! Think of bad things! Think bad things!' _Lilith cried into his mind as she was flooded with positive emotions aimed at her, not a particularly health thing for her.

After a moment, Harry released the wolf and Lilith staggered around, looking rather woozy.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked concerned.

_'Wooooozzzy… '_ Lilith mental voice blurred out sounding just as out of it as the physical representation of her did.

Lilith steadied herself in both the physical and astral plane; finally getting some control over her nausea, she shook her wolf head. /'Don't do that again please'/ she asked weakly.

"What happened?" Harry asked confused.

_'I do not take been loved well…'_ She told him as the last bouts of nausea faded, whilst she was strong enough to take most positive emotion with little effect, love still made her sick. _'It makes me ill. I live for fear and terror, not love and roses'_

"Huh…" Harry muttered in thought.

_'Never mind, come on. We need to get you home and change you clothes' _Lilith stated authoritarian as she sent Harry a mental picture of him in his baggy muddy clothes. She realized she might have told him a little bit too much, too soon.

Harry grimaced at the mental picture.

"Okay…"

* * *

Opening the door to number 4, privet drive Harry came across an odd scene. 

Dudley was inside, standing next to the door of the kitchen looking somewhat worse for wear as he was huddled up to his mother, Aunt Petunia, crying, and sobbing about killer birds.

Harry had little time to contemplate the sight when he heard an angry roar from further down the corridor and looked to see Uncle Vernon come raging down towards him.

"YOU'VE GOT SOME NERVE SHOWING YOUR FACE HERE YOU INGRATE!!!" He bellowed whilst storming up to Harry.

Vernon reached forward to seize his criminally insane brat of a nephew and give him what for, when a violent static charge that ripped through the air repelled his hand.

"Ah, FCK!" Screamed Vernon as he pulled his hand away and stared hatefully at Harry.

"This is your doing freak!" He snarled out to Harry. "If you think you're staying here after what you did to Dudley with your freakiness then you've got another thing coming! YOU CAN BLOODY WELL SLEEP ON THE STREETS NOW!!."

A raven swooped down and landed on Harry's shoulder.

"That was my doing actually, so shut up.." The raven spoke female tone and voice of ice annoyed at yet another attack on her human.

This was the first time Harry had seen her speak aloud in animal form; in fact he hadn't known she could do that. Harry pondered why she talked mentally whilst the Dursleys all stared at the talking raven.

Dudley screamed.

Lilith turned to look at him, which only make him wail louder. "You can shut the fuck up too!"

"The bird talks…" Aunt Petunia said blankly.

Lilith tilted her head at her. "Observant aren't you?" she asked curiously.

A wave of fear then Aunt Petunia fainted, leaving Dudley standing there alone. He floundered about for a moment before bursting into even deeper wails.

Lilith twitched, the waves of fear he was putting out soothed her, for that she would put up with the wailing pig. Besides her pet needed them if he was going to survive in this world, killing them would not be beneficial.

"W-W-W-What t-the h-h-hell a-re you?" Vernon stuttered backing away in shock.

"Me?" Lilith questioned cheerfully as only demonic raven truly can "Well, I'm a soul devouring demon from hell sent to punish you for your crimes."

Harry sweatdropped.

Lilith grinned nastily as the walls began to drip red with blood.

Vernon's eyes shrunk to pin prinks.

Dudley wailed.

Petunia… stayed unconscious.

Lilith tilted her bird body forward, those amethyst eyes gleaming. "Now…. Let's have a child welfare discussion."

The door closed behind Lilith and Harry ominously.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter name: A book of things now dead and gone.

A week had passed since Lilith's little _'it's for your child's welfare that you treat Harry correctly'_ speech, complete with shape changing, black fireballs, summoned ghost spirits and the walls dripping red with blood, forming demonic symbols which Harry couldn't even begin to understand.

Even now, you could feel the faint linger of the magic in the living room.

The couch was never going to be the same again.

The Dursley's for their part had been completely terrified into submission, believing that a demon lord had taken up residence in their house, intent on punishing them for their crimes and even now, a week later they were still terrified of Harry or of upsetting him. The less said of how they reacted around Lilith in any of her forms the better, they had all become devote Christians and prayed almost every night, no doubt for deliverance from this 'demon lord'.

Harry idly wondered if the Dursleys were actively trying to piss Lilith off, if she really had been a 'demon lord' Harry doubted that she would have appreciated people worshipping god around her.

Lying back on his bed he looked around the smallest bedroom in the house, which he acquired recently, the Dursley's had shifted all his stuff from the cupboard up into this room at Lilith's 'suggestion'. Initially the room looked rather pitiful after Lilith had tossed all of Dudley's broken stuff out, Harry did not have many possessions, but that started to change as she shifted some of her stuff into the room along with whatever else she had gotten for him.

His life had changed dramatically after she had come into his life; it was almost like a rollercoaster, exhilarating but terrifying at the same time. At least his life had changed for the better, he had someone to talk to whenever he wanted, he had clothes that not only fit but also looked good, and he was out of that cursed cupboard as he now had a room of his own.

Admittedly, the Dursleys had to be terrified into accepting these changes but Harry felt that they deserved it, if just for making his life miserable for the last nine years. Lilith certainly had no problems inspiring the suitable feelings of fear and terror into them.

Harry turned to look down on the floor where Lilith in wolf form was reading one of her books, somehow flipping the pages without touching them. Harry could feel the magic radiating off the books, most of the magic felt similar but not quite the same as Lilith herself. When he had mentioned this to her she had acted surprised, as if she was not expecting him to be able to sense it but then seemed to accept it.

She had warned him not to touch any of her books, as they were dangerous.

She had also started to teach him something she called _Black Magic_; Harry was initially dubious thanks to the name thinking it to be evil magic, Lilith had given him a sharp chewing out over that one. She had told him to dispel any ideas of his that Black or Dark equated evil or that White and Light equaled good, according to her good and evil were the values society placed on ones actions to ensure that individuals followed societies expectations.

She had warned him that their was no grand law book of 'Good' and 'Evil', everything was always relative to where you were, different civilizations and especially different species had completely different ideas on what was right and wrong.

She had also explained that some people would have found her terrifying of the Dursleys as evil, Harry had snorted at that and wondered if those people knew anything about living with said Dursleys.

Overall complicated for a ten year old to understand but Harry vaguely got what she was trying to say even if he could not remember it quite right. She had told him not to fall for the illusion of Dark and Light as Evil and Good but rather focus on his own circumstances and make up his own mind when the time came.

Lilith had then sat down and explained to him that _Black Magic_ drew off the power of the Mazoku, her kind and that she was the only Mazoku around, so if he wanted to be more powerful magic user then he would have to help her become more powerful. She also explained that the art of _Black Magic_ was all about offensive and summoning magic.

Harry had asked her if she could teach any other types of magic besides _Black Magic _but Lilith had shook her head at that, explaining that it was all she knew and in fact all she could use as she was literately _Black Magic_. He became a bit concerned then he'd found that out, draining _Black Magic_ from a _Black Magic_ spirit but Lilith was amused, assuring him there was nothing he could do to harm her.

He had learnt a lot since then and his crowning achievement was a black flame that he could form in the palm of his hand, it was an unnatural flame that destroyed anything it touched and drew upon Lilith's power. He could not cast it for long or even often, as she became deeply annoyed and cut the spell off, Harry presumed that was because it weakened her or something similar.

Looking over at Lilith whom was lying across the floor in wolf form still reading the books, Harry idly wondered what she thought of this whole situation.

* * *

Lilith for her part found the whole thing amusing, the constant ambient fear the Dursley's produced by knowing she was in the same building as them was enough to feed her, allowing her to focus on the books she had acquired and teaching Harry the occasional bit of _Black Magic_.

Taking those books had been one of her best moves to date, some of them were almost useless if amusing, such as a Mazoku Cookbook that had a Golden Dragon cuisine special recipe inside of it. She idly noted that she would have to try that out some time in her long life if she ever ran across a Gold Dragon.

The next book was one of the most important although not the most interesting, it was the _Book of Vile Darkness_, a compilation of evil knowledge. The original _Book of Vile Darkness_ was a scroll written by a Vasharan spellcaster, it contained the terrible knowledge that he had gained through experimentation and study. He recorded ideas and concepts so foul that they have never occurred to another, not even the darkest soul. The scroll was later discovered by a cleric of Nerull, who added her knowledge; other priests who learned from her additions added their own, some writers even asked questions from summoned demons and recorded their words directly. Eventually the collected works came into the possession of a genocidal wizard and warlock named Vecna. After his transformation to lichdom, he transcribed the scrolls to a bound book.

This was a copy of that very book and evil flourished wherever the book went; it had been this book that had 'attracted' the other books around it. The book seemed to have an aura that drew evil and black magic to itself; in fact, the book had most likely been the thing that attracted Lilith's attention.

The sheer amount of evil the book contained was delightful, from human sacrifice to curses of sheer evil to poisons to dark gifts; it seemed to have an idea for everything. A precious achieve of knowledge to be sure, she might have Harry have a look through it later if she ever managed to corrupt him to her way of thinking enough.

Another book was almost as vicious, the Morturom Demento, otherwise known as the Book of the Dead. It was a book bound in human flesh and inked in human blood, inside it contained ancient burial rites and demon resurrection rituals, and most interestingly towards the back, it had a ritual to restore a ruin Mazoku. That alone made it priceless to Lilith, although she would be unable to use it as the ritual mentioned several magical items that were not yet in her possession but they were no doubt somewhere in the world.

The remaining books were the more interesting ones; they were all volumes of or connected to the Necronomicon of Alhazred, 'a book of things now dead and gone' to translate its name. A history of times long gone past, almost unreadable thanks to the author's tendency to stitch together fact, rumor, speculation, and complete balderdash together, which resulted in this vast compendium of near-nonsense.

Lilith had not given up on reading the books as the very first page had caught her attention in an almost unhealthy way.

_I, Abdul Al-Hazred, say this to you:_

_The Elder Gods have put the damned  
To sleep. And they that tamper with the seals  
And wake the sleepers, too, are damned.  
And I say further, herein lies those spells  
To break the seals that hold in thrall  
Cthulhu and his ebon horde. For I  
Have spent my life to learn them all.  
So, fool, the darkness is pent up in space:  
The gates to Hell are closed. You  
Meddle at your own expense: When you call  
They will wake and answer you.  
This is my gift to mankind -- here are the keys.  
Find your own locks; be glad.  
I, Abdul Al-Hazred say this to you:  
I, who tampered, and am mad._

Lilith would have betted her existence that he was speaking of the Mazoku and perhaps the magic of the world being sealed away by the Shinzoku, the Dragon Gods and their servants. This was the first clue to what had happened to the world's magic and it was a compendium over 900 pages long, lucky did not begin to describe it although she doubted it contained solid evidence of how the magic was sealed, nor any way of unsealing said magic.

The Necronomicon was Alhazred's ramblings about the past, useful only because he had access to many pieces of knowledge that was now lost to the world or only hinted at in mythology but also because he was using dubious magical techniques to clarify the past. If she was reading this correctly, some of the magic he was using was downright dangerous for a human and Lilith was unsurprised by the fact he stated he was mad; He had contacted beings he called the "Old Ones" using magical invocations, and warned of terrible powers waiting to return to re-claim the Earth.

According to Alhazred, the Old Ones were beings from "beyond the spheres", they were superhuman and extra-human. They mated with humans and begat monstrous offspring. They passed forbidden knowledge to humankind. They were forever seeking a channel into our plane of existence.

Lilith would have yawned at that, the classic human 'oh, noes! Evil beasts come to get us!' junk they seemed so fascinated in, nihilists the lot of them. However the magical invocations he was using however was _Black Magic_, anyone with correct knowledge of magic knew that Black Magic was all about Mazoku and so those "Old Ones" were none less than Mazoku.

_It must not be thought that the powers capable of greatest wickedness appear to us in the form of repellent familiars, and other, closely related demons. They do not. Small, visible demons are merely the effluvia which those vast forms of destructiveness have left in Their wake -- skin scrapings and even more tenuous shreds of evil that attach themselves to the living like leeches from some great slain leviathan of the deep that has wreaked havoc on a hundred coastal cities before plunging to its death with a thousand hurled harpoons quivering in its flesh._

_For the mightiest powers there can be no death and the hurled harpoons inflict, at most, surface injuries which heal quickly. I have said before and I shall say again until my tardily earned wisdom is accepted by my brethren as fact--in confronting __that which has always been and always will be a master of magic can know only self-reproach and despair if he mistakes a temporary victory for one that he can never hope permanently to win._

Her belief were confirmed by those passages which she had found scattered amongst the pages of the book, which described Mazoku in the various ways, from their unique reproductive methods to their nigh invulnerability to almost all injury and death.

_As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. __Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, and after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They rule again. _

There was that strange 'spheres' talk, Lilith thought about it for a second, looking up at Harry who was playing some handheld video game she'd gotten for him. Lilith shook her head and looked back at the book felling a little embarrassed; it was easy to work out. The 'spheres' were the staffs of the gods which rose from the Sea of Chaos and held the worlds on top.

Lilith pondered what had happened to the 'Old Ones', where they had gone if they had 'ruled once' and she had found the answer to that question in one of the other books; the 'fallen angels' were cast out and bound:

_"And I proceeded to where things were chaotic. And I saw something horrible: I saw neither a heaven above nor a firmly founded earth, but a place chaotic and horrible. And there I saw seven stars of the heaven bound together in it, like great mountains, and burning with fire. Then I said: 'For what sin have they been bound, and on what account have they been cast in hither?' Then said Uriel, one of the holy angels who was with me, and was chief over them and said: 'Enoch, why dost thou ask, and why art thou eager for the truth? These are the number of the stars of heaven which have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and are bound here till ten thousand years, the time entailed by their sins, are consummated.'"_

Stars of heaven, heaven in this context meant the astral plane as interpreted by humans with little comprehension of it. Stars of the astral plane… Mazoku. They were bound for ten thousand years in some place chaotic and horrible; Lilith wondered if that was the Sea of Chaos or some other specially created realm of existence.

She also wondered if the ten thousand years thing was accurate or merely a human way of saying eternity, she personally would have imagined the Shinzoku or Ryuzoku to imprison the Mazoku for an eternity if they could. Lilith was of course assuming that the holy angel was either Shinzoku or Ryuzoku; she did not know many other /holy/ races.

An odd reference in the middle of one of the books had Lilith intrigued; it spoke of the Sea of Chaos as not only a thing but as an entity.

The primal chaos, Lord of all ... the blind idiot god -- Azathoth.

Lilith's insides froze as she came to comprehend how much power such an entity would command, it would be the Lord of All. Everything came from the Sea of Chaos; it would be the Mother of All Creation, parent to both the Dark Lords and the Dragon Gods. Even called the blind idiot god by humans had not dimmed her respect for it, in fact for the first time in her life, she felt afraid, afraid of Azathoth.

Shaking such thoughts from her mind, she focused on her original task.

It was not after much more digging that she found out roughly what had happened, a curse by god, most likely this worlds Dragon god on the world, humankind and all its creatures. Lilith would have raised her eyebrows at that if she had a human form but instead she settled for acting plain shocked.

What could cause a Dragon god to curse the world?

Yet more reading revealed that God's curse was on the Nephilim (Fallen angels) and the evil they had caused. It was this curse, which cast them out of the earth and consigned them to the Abyss. Lilith didn't know any curse like this so she was suspecting that it was merely human supposition, however considering the magic restriction and other evidence saying the Mazoku have been bound, it most likely had an element of truth behind it.

The most accurate understanding of what happened came not from the books of the Necronomicon but from the manuscript. It discussed the teaching of humans by the fallen angel's chief Azâzêl:

_And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjâzâ taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armârôs the resolving of enchantments, Barâqîjâl, taught astrology, Kôkabêl the constellations, Ezêqêêl the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiêl the signs of the earth, Shamsiêl the signs of the sun, and Sariêl the course of the moon."_

Lilith mused on that, the Mazoku known as Azâzêl, possibly a Mazoku Lord since he was a 'chief', taught the humans some knowledge along with a bunch of other Mazoku and the Dragon God became pissy because there was fornication….

Lilith twitched _'What an anal retard..'_

_'Hmmm…'_ Lilith thought as she looked back over the passage.

The Mazoku were teaching humans magic as well as metalwork, knowledge of clouds, earth, sun and moon sounded like the teaching of sharmanistic magic. Moon was most likely water as Lilith doubted that any Mazoku would teach humans astral elemental magic willingly as it was one of the few things that could harm them.

Lilith knew she wasn't going to be teaching Harry it, that was for sure. She was still weak enough to be vunerable to the majority of astral attacks, she really had to get her strength up.

Lilith read on.

"_the Lords said to Raphael: 'Bind Azâzêl hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dûdâêl (Gods Kettle/Crucible/Cauldron), and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire. And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted, and proclaim the healing of the earth, that they may heal the plague, and that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons. And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azâzêl: to him ascribe all sin._"

Lords? LORDS?? PURAL???

_'In Ruby eyes name, no wonder they all lost'_ Lilith thought startled. _'TWO or more Dragon Gods…'_

She had a clue though, 'an opening in the desert which is in Gods Cauldron' was where they had locked one of the Mazoku lords away, if not the Dark Lord of this world and all their servants.

The 'healing of the Earth, the plague so that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the watchers have disclosed' was something that sounded deeply suspicious to Lilith.

_'Magic…'_ Lilith realised grimly. _'The Dragon Gods viewed the teaching of magic to humans as a plague and set about fixing that by locking magic away from humanity forever and preventing Mazoku from ever coming back to this world. The abyss and the restriction of magic, prevents our intervention.'_

Lilith smirked._ 'Well, it would have if they had not fucked up. Heh, stupid dragons…'_

Lilith browsed through the remaining material trying to find out about the Dark Lord of this staff whom had been so badly beaten by the multiple Dragon Gods that decended on it. An answer was found in a recorded dream about the 'Dark One' that ruled the 'Old Ones', most of it was human gibberish but one line told her all she needed to know.

_"And before us a beast of blue, a thousand heads, and chaos, dark, and terrible, and true."_

Lilith smiled; she knew whose staff she was on now.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter Name:** Dudley's Birthday

Sunlight filtered through the window of the smallest bedroom of number 4, Privet Drive.

Morning daylight tends to affect people in different ways, some people wake at the crack of dawn, bright and alert the moment the light touched their face. Others fight off the approaching morning as best they can and then complain bitterly as they are dragged back to awareness. Harry Potter belonged to neither of these groups; years of sleeping in a cramped cupboard under the stairs had given him the ability to sleep through everything short of an earthquake, or Aunt Petunias screeching voice.

Whichever one was louder.

Lilith unfortunately had neither of these techniques at her disposal to awaken her pet, although the concept of using an earthquake as an alarm clock tickled her somewhere deep in her little Mazoku heart. Instead, she had other tactics at her disposal…

The first thing Harry became aware of was a heavy weight suddenly jumping up onto his bed. Harry's subconscious mind dimly recorded this and he would have quickly slipped straight back into sleep if it were not for what happened next…

Cold, wet slime lashed against his face again and again, followed by the stench of foul dog breath.

Harry awoke with a start, hand rubbing against the cold slime on his face.

"Gah! What the?!" he cried tiredly as he pushed whatever was sliming his face away as hard as he could.

With the sudden slime attack removed he recovered slightly. Gaining some of his mental facilities back, he wiped his face with the back of his covers to clean himself as best as he could whilst grimacing in disgust. Feeling somewhat cleaner now, Harry rubbed his eyes clean of sleep and peered blearily at the figure that was on top of him. His new eyesight quickly resolved the figure to be a red furred wolf looking somewhat pleased of herself.

He glared at her.

"That was disgusting," Harry flatly informed the looming wolf as he quickly put two and two together.

Lilith let her tongue roll out of her mouth and panted, still looking damned pleased of her little stunt. _'Get up,'_ she informed him _'It's morning.'_

Harry turned to look at the clock and all but growled. "It's nine o'clock in the morning on a Saturday," he declared disgustedly. "No sane person would get up this early in the morning."

Lilith padded around on the bed before hoping down onto the bedroom floor with little effort _'Sanity is overrated..'_

Harry snorted at her. "Yes, well sleep isn't so I'm going back to sleep," he declared before moving to lie back down again.

Lilith's next words froze him. _'Go back to sleep again and I'll set the bed on fire,'_ she warned idly.

Like any sane person, Harry's mind analyzed that sentence and attempted to ascertain whether the other person would do what they had said they would do.

The rest of Harry's mind was smacked on the head by his common sense for being so stupid, not only would Lilith probably set the bed on fire but the rest of the house as well.

The past week or so that Harry had known her, Lilith had shown him that she truly did not believe in the concept of restraint and that her favorite hobby was causing bedlam with a side order of chaos.

Again, the couch was never going to be the same.

With this in mind, Harry leapt from the bed at a quite impressive speed for a ten year old. He somehow managed to find and land on his feet as he stood before a bemused wolf wearing only his pajamas.

_'Ah... You've woken up,'_ Lilith commented cheerfully in that satanic mental voice of hers.

Harry knew she was pure evil, he just knew it.

That or she was a morning person.

Did Mazoku even sleep?

Harry pondered the mysteries of Mazoku whilst getting dressed; Lilith ignored his mental ramblings, amusing as they were, in order to focus on much more long-term objectives.

Last night she had discovered which of the four staff of the gods she was currently residing. It was the staff of Chaotic Blue, the mistress of Chaos rivaled only by Azathoth itself. Legend past down from her progenitor told her that of all the Dark Lords, Chaotic Blue was one of the ones not to be underestimated. She was wild and unpredictable but never in a way that put her at a disadvantage.

Lilith was left wondering how such a chaotic being would react after being released and more importantly how it would react to one of Ruby Eye's children on its staff, it was imperative that Lilith found more out as soon as possible so she could plan on the eventuality of the Dark Lord being released.

Harry opened the bedroom door, knocking her from her thoughts.

"You coming to down to breakfast or are you going to stay up here?" he asked curiously, now fully dressed in his casual clothing that Lilith had picked up for him earlier.

Lilith tilted her head at him. _'Sure why not?'_ she answered agreeably _'I haven't had breakfast yet.'_

Harry blinked at the sudden change in her habit before shaking his head and proceeding downstairs to the kitchen, Lilith padding softly behind him.

Inside the kitchen, Aunt Petunia was watching over the morning bacon whilst preparing the eggs and the rest of the breakfasts items. She gave Harry and the wolf that treaded at his side deeply uneasy, nigh fearful look as they entered but focused on dishing up the food onto plates. The Dursleys had learned that if they just went with the flow things would turn out much better than if they tried to defy the 'soul-devouring demon'.

Harry looked confused over to the corner of the kitchen where there was a small mountain of presents stacked until realization struck him.

**'Ah, it's Dudley's Birthday,'** he exclaimed mentally into his head as he sat down on his seat and began tucking into his food. He idly wondered how he had forgotten this date, probably because of all the things that had happened in his life recently.

_'They are celebrating the day of his birth?'_ Lilith asked curiously, as she lay down besides him. To an outside observer she looked almost as if a loyal dog next to its master.

**'Er.. yeah. That's what you do on a birthday,'** Harry answered back to her mentally as he took a bite of his fried eggs, he was deliberately not speaking out verbally because it would completely freak the Durleys. Old habits died hard after all.

Lilith thought for a moment _'It just doesn't seem like something that anyone would want to celebrate,'_ she commented causing Harry to almost choke on his food.

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen moments after Harry's near brush with death by egg and sat down at his plate of food opposite to Harry. Aunt Petunia quickly sat down besides him as she finished cleaning up and the pair began devouring their food as quick as possible to get away from their cold freak of a nephew and his demon.

This continued until Dudley came waddling into the kitchen after his parents had scoffed down around half of their food. Dudley surprisingly ignored the food for now, shuddering fearfully as his eyes drifted over his cousin Harry and the demon that lay at his feet. He quickly shuffled past them and moved over to the mountain of his presents which he began counting slowly. Harry watched him with cat slit eyes of his, the sheer effort of counting one present after another seemed to weigh on the poor tub of lard.

Finally, Dudley finished counting and his face fell.

"Thirty-six," he said plainly, looking over at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy," Aunt Petunia replied, pointing out the hidden present.

"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face.

Harry looked up at Dudley with those cold green cat-slit eyes of his, idly wondering if Dudley would be stupid enough to throw a tantrum and turn over the table like he had in times gone past. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had both frozen, eyes darting to the wolf. They were both aware of the potential danger of a Dudley tantrum could cause, unlike their currently ignorant son.

A low warning growl from Lilith corrected this oversight and caused the overweight boy to freeze. Harry thought Dudley looked a right idiot with his face bright red, and his mouth gapping open in readiness to let out a wail. The fear and tension in the room shot up to the point where even Harry could taste it on his tongue.

Having their undivided attention, Lilith got up onto all fours and walked slowly towards Dudley. Each step Lilith took further increased the fear in the room, especially from Dudley himself. Lilith padded to a stop a foot or so away from Dudley's feet and stared the overweight boy down for a moment. She enjoyed the meal that his fear produced, as he gibbered, however such mindless fears could not hold her interest for long. Therefore, she turned and to add insult to sheer terror, she jumped up to the table to snag the bacon and sausages off Dudley's plate.

The boy watched wide-eyed as the wolf-demon ate his breakfast in front of him but he was too terrified to move, let alone attempt do anything about it. Harry had to hide his grin behind his hand as he watched Lilith do the same thing to Dudley that Dudley had done to him time after time.

Vernon stared blankly at the demon before chuckling uneasily. "Well.. they say that breakfast is the least important meal of the day," he stated in a falsely important tone as he edged out towards the door with his wife, "so we can just skip it."

He looked towards his son who had frozen against the kitchen wall. "Come on Dudley… got to be early to pick up your friends," he said with a forced laugh and underlying tension in his voice as his hand gripped around a cross that hung from his neck.

Dudley snapped out of his trance of staring at Lilith and scrabbled over to his father's side, squealing like a pig as Lilith took a snap at him as he past. Dudley dived past his father and followed his mother as they flew out of the front door to the car sitting in the driveway.

Uncle Vernon stayed in the doorway for a moment longer, torn between a desire to run away and the need to inform his good for nothing nephew of something. The only reason he did so was to ensure the demon did not have any excuse to come after his family, not that it seemed to need many.

"Harry…" Vernon started only to trail off as he caught those non-human eyes of his nephews as Harry looked up at him. Vernon shuddered before recovering somewhat, "Mrs. Figgs will be coming around to pick you up in a few minutes…Just…"

Vernon wanted to say a mountain of other things, like do not do anything freakish, or get the hell rid of that demon. He had not the guts to doso, Vernon Dursleys was not a brave man, and he had too strong survival instincts.

So instead, he scrambled out of the door, intent in getting his family the hell away for the day.

Once the sound of the front door slamming shut reached their ears, Harry sighed and leaned forwards. "Great, Mrs. Figgs," he stated irritated as he rested his head on his elbow.

_'What's so bad about the cat woman?'_ Lilith inquired, knowing who the woman was both from Harry's memories and from the fact that she was one of the local neighbors. Lilith was very well acquainted with the local neighbors and the neighbors with her, thanks to her unique feeding habits. This was much to the neighborhoods nightly displeasure.

"She shows me pictures of her cats, even the dead ones!" Harry exclaimed aggravated as he speared part of his bacon. "Worse, her house smells of cabbage."

Lilith mentally projected the image of rolling eyes into Harry's head_ 'I assure you that as a wolf, there are many smells worse than mere cabbage.'_

Harry smirked and stared at her with his cat-slit eyes whilst Lilith stared back with her slit, elliptical purple eyes, they shared a moment of eye contact before Harry broke off.

Harry enjoyed the fact that their eyes looked similar, it gave him a feeling of family, of belonging and closeness that he had lacked for most of his life. Unfortunately looking Lilith directly in the eye for too long was disturbing; there was something dark, destructive, and inhuman behind those eyes.

"Just don't eat one of her cats…" he warned pointing his fork at her as he shook of those concerns and derived some dark humor out of the idea of Snuggles meeting Lilith for lunch.

_'Cats are too stringy…'_ Lilith commented into his head disapprovingly as she caught the idea, shooting down his idea. _'Birds make better eating.'_

Harry coughed, "I won't ask how you know that," he declared whilst wondering if any of the neighbors were missing a pet.

The pair looked up as their conversation was interrupted by the doorbell ringing, Harry turned an annoyed look at Lilith.

"And that will be Mrs. Figgs…."


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter Name:** Mrs. Figgs house

Lilith gracefully arched her back to meet Mrs. Figgs hand as the woman stroked sensually down her back; Lilith lidded her eyes and let her pleasure known by the low constant purr that emitted from deep in her throat. She could definitely get used to this sort of attention.

Finally pushed to his limits Harry looked up from the photo album that he forced himself to flick through to save his sanity from the monotonous boredom of Mrs. Figgs house and glared at Lilith, whom was currently in the form of a cute black cat with white socks.

**'Enjoying that are you?'** He asked somewhat bitterly to the Mazoku who was lying across Mrs. Figgs lap. Harry did not think it fair that she got to enjoy herself whilst he tried to stop his brains from turning into tofu.

Lilith opened her eyes and looked at him in that conceited, self-important way that only felines can manage. _'The woman may have many faults but her stroking technique is dead on,'_ Lilith sighed contently as another hand stroked from the top of her head and down her back.

Harry scowled at her before returning to look through the photo album of cats; apparently, Mrs. Snuggles became Mrs. Snuffed-it. Mrs. Figgs latest cat was Tibbles whom Lilith seemed to find interesting for some odd reason. Harry supposed he should feel sorry for Mrs. Figgs loosing a pet as she seemed to be very attached to them but year after year of looking at pictures of Snowy, Mr Paws, Tufty and Snuggles had removed most of his goodwill towards her.

Lilith just purred louder as she soaked in her pet's resentment and dislike of his current situation. Harry seemed to find the décor, the cabbage smell, and the constant attention of Tibbles deeply grating on his consciousness. Awkward questions such as Harry's sudden lack of glasses and changed eye shape had further served to annoy Harry.

Lilith had to admit she had not entirely thought that one out.

Fortunately, it was the Dursleys with their obsession with presenting normality had actually come up with a semi suitable excuse. They said something about experimental surgery in order to help restore Harry 'deteriorating' eyesight that Lilith really could not be bothered to remember.

The excuse was obviously total bullshit but it seemed to work with most people and they shook the oddness off with that single excuse. It seemed odd that they stopped questioning or believed that straight off but then again most people around here seemed to accept whatever they were told. Of course, most people around here where complete morons so Lilith was not hugely surprised.

Contrary to the local average, Mrs. Figgs seemed to find it very interesting and exciting judging by her emotional state. Although if she was anything like Petunia Dursley then it was because she smelt a new piece of gossip to talk about, that seemed to be the majority of Petunia's life.

Still, something had been nagging on Liliths nerves ever since she arrived at here with Harry and making her feel edgy. She felt unnaturally tense and disturbed by something; it had taken her most of the evening to work out exactly what had been setting her on nerve.

There was a faint, ever so faint stench of Holy Magic that lingering in the room.

Being bitter enemies Shinzoku, Ryuzoku and Mazoku were very attuned to each other's magical signatures, allowing them to sense their opposite from a fair distance away. The more powerful the individual, the further away the individual could be sensed. It was for this reason that Lilith was sure that there was no Dragon-God currently present on this staff; it was also the reason why she believed the stories about Chaotic Blue's generals being sealed away. There should have been some tangible presence otherwise.

The lingering Holy magic in the room was not enough to indicate that some had cast a spell here; rather it seems that someone with Holy Magic had entered the room. Lilith quickly dismissed Mrs. Figgs, as not only would Lilith have felt the Holy Magic lingering Mrs. Figgs but the woman also had as much magical talent as Petunia Dursley. This meant that the origin of the Holy Magic had to have been a visitor to her house.

The boring widow who lived alone with her cats was just bumped up a couple of notches on Lilith 'interesting things' meter. Curious Lilith put out a wide, long distance scan for any more tiny traces of Holy Magic in the surrounding areas, Liliths increasing drain on Harry magic caused the temperature to sudden drop.

Mrs. Figgs shuddered as if someone had walked across her grave and looked around. "Is it cold in here?" she asked carefully, noticing that Harry was unaffected by the seemingly cold temperatures.

"No?" Harry stated somewhat confused, if anything it was a bit too hot and stuffy in the house. He was beginning to feel somewhat tired; maybe he did not catch enough sleep last night.

"Must be a draft or something," Mrs. Figgs murmured looking puzzled, she gave her pet cat Tibbles the same questioning look that she sent it every time she believed that magic was occurring. As a squib she was very much like a muggle and could not feel magic around her, so she had a 'seeing cat' that could detect magic around her instead.

Tibbles whom was sitting on the table just behind Harry staring holes in the back of Harry's head having felt something, gave a puzzled look in reply but eventually shook his head once to Mrs. Figgs unspoken question. This action was something that Harry missed thanks to him facing the wrong way but not Lilith who was still lying across Mrs. Figgs lap.

_'That cat is definitely way smarter than it should be…'_ Lilith commented thoughtfully as she eyed Tibbles out of the corner of her eye.

To be truthful Lilith had sensed the magic in the cat immediately but she had learned that magic in animals was nothing to get overexcited about. There seemed to be a number of species that have absorbed some of the limited ambient magic, even in her short time Lilith had come across magical snakes, rats and even a few other things that were not general knowledge for some reason in the local area. How people could ignore those garden gnome creatures was an amusing mystery to her.

The most logical explanation was that these creatures were descendants of original magical creatures that had managed to hang on ever since the world's magic had been restricted. Memories of her progenitor's world told her that nearly every creature over there used magic in some form of another, and often in vastly more impressive ways than the creatures that she had currently seen.

**'How can you tell?'** Harry thought back a moment later as he started to turn to look at the cat behind him. Tibbles was staring at him with those creepy eyes of it, it was almost worse than that stray spectacled grey tabby that used to sit around and stare at him for hours.

_'Don't look idiot!'_ Lilith hissed disbelieving back into his mind, had he not paid any attention to all those lousy spy movies that the Dursleys watched?

Harry covered his ass nicely by picking up another photo album next to Tibbles without any seeming hesitation Lilith noticed with some slight pride. It seemed he was starting to get some of this misdirection, sneaky stuff.

Unfortunately for the pair of them Mrs. Figgs seemed to take it as a sign of enthusiasm that he was looking at the photo albums of his own intuitive and put Lilith down on the chair so she could sit down on the couch next to Harry. She then beamed as she proceeded to go through each of the pictures with such happiness that was enough to drive Lilith off for some more desirable prey.

Wincing in cat form as if something had left a bad taste in her mouth, Lilith slinked off through the cat flap in the door; her pet could suffer this woman alone. Self-sacrifice was not a virtue in Mazoku belief systems, besides Harry would probably even forgive her for bailing on him if she tormented his relatives for a while.

Hmmm… now, that was an idea.

Back in the living room, Harry slowly flipped through page after page of cats in Mrs. Figgs photo album somewhat depressed as he continued to muttered various mental curses that he had started the moment he noticed Lilith leaving the room. Mrs. Figgs for the most part was happily pointing out certain cats that she owned in the pictures as well as cats and people that she had met in various places around the world.

Of course she went into detail about the truly hilarious stories behind each photo, Harry occasionally asked a few questions just to keep up some semblance of interest, as it was better than the awkward silence that would otherwise linger. He had learned not to ask to deeply about the ones of her husband since those questions ended up in Mrs. Figgs going into a teary-eyed remembrance.

The worst part is when she tried to compensate for 'upsetting' him with pictures of various cat shows that she had been too, Harry felt it was bad enough when he was inundated with pictures of Mrs. Figgs cats but adding other people's… total strangers cats' just added insult to mental injury. Some of the pictures left him wondering what was wrong with theses people, their affection towards their cats was nothing short of scary.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter Name:** Summer Holidays

Lilith's discovery about the_ 'Holy Magic' _stench in Mrs Figgs house caused her to watch the house very carefully over the next few months in the hopes that whom ever left it would return but unfortunately they never did. The incident had however instilled a caution into Lilith, there was someone else out there that knew magic and they were not part of her fraction, worse yet they were most likely her direct enemies. She didn't believe that she was strong enough to take them on at her current power level and so had toned down her activities until she could find out exactly what she was currently facing.

Now trying to cut back on the sheer amount of carnage she made, Lilith continued to teach Harry _'Black Magic' _as a way to distract herself. They slowly progressed into more complex spells rather than the simple yet destructive black magic flame spell harry started with. The progress was heavily slowed by the fact_ 'Black Magic' _like most of the magics Lilith knew, requires an innate understanding of the forces you were dealing with.

Lilith would admit there and then that she was not the best at describing concepts, a fact made worse by the radical differences in how Harry and Lilith both viewed the world.

Humans viewed the world through five senses, sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. They existed in a world of four dimensions and often had difficulties grasping concepts of scale and time as well as the simple laws of physics.

Mazoku were radically different, existing in the astral plane they could 'touch' and 'envelop' anything in the physical world and suddenly know its properties without seemingly interacting with said object. A Mazoku quantum physicist is a frightening concept. Talking about concepts, the concept of time for a Mazoku is also fundamentally different, thanks both to a Mazoku's technically eternal lifespan and the fact that they think much faster than a human.

Additional differences come from the fact that a Mazoku can easily change its apparently human body to bring in more sensory information than normal, the ability to see throughout the electromagnetic spectrum, super acute hearing and smell are not uncommon adaptations.

Then finally one must factor in that Mazoku are highly empathic creatures, capable of sensing the emotions of anyone around them. This brings a whole new level to social interaction as you could sense, 'taste', another persons emotions. Even if you can not directly see a person you can sense them from afar, ambushes are not something Mazoku are common to fall prey to unless distracted.

All in all, Lilith was having a small nightmare describing various concepts to Harry. So in true Mazoku style she decided to cheat and hence the pair began spending a lot more time out of the house, going to the library. The Dursleys were particularly pleased by this turn of events and even coughed up the money for a rail card so Harry could go to the library anytime he wanted, although one shouldn't mistake this for an act of charity or kindness. More it was an attempt to get Harry and that Demon of his away from them as long as possible without seeming to get rid of them, as more direct attempts ended in nothing less then total disasters.

So whenever Harry got out of school he would head down to the local library, sometimes with a raven, cat or a wolfish dog following him. Lilith initially directed Harry to study books on maths and science, slowly advancing in level as he began to master the concepts. Lilith's reasoning to this was revealed to Harry, a solid understanding of physics would better help him master the spells that break those very same laws, she likewise began to teach him small things about her people and the history of the world as she knew it.

Reluctant in the beginning as most school kids who had to learn out of school were, Harry dragged his feet much to Lilith annoyance but when he began seeing marked improvements in his attempts at _'Black Magic'_ he threw himself back into his studies. Getting away from the Dursleys was a great bonus as well and Harry began enjoying spending time at the library, often staying as long as he could. It wasn't just educational books that he read, he began scouring the library for interesting books. Some of the ones at the top of his list were fictional books about magic and he often pestered Lilith whether certain spells were possible or not with the magic he learned. More often the answer would be 'not possible', which really meant that Lilith wouldn't bother wasting power even letting him attempt them and Harry quickly learned that Lilith seemed much happier whenever they tried more 'naturalistic' or 'druid' type spells.

A slow and painful to reach curbstone was finally reached when Harry successfully managed to summon an animal back at his bedroom in the Dursleys house, it was only a small sparrow but was amongst the most difficult spells that he had attempted. The black flame spell he had learned at first whilst much more destructive was just a simple power burn, the bird summoning represented complex spell arrays and hence was a much more impressive show of how far he had progressed.

Harry was not the only one that was progressing in power, Lilith was on a continuous hunt for new magical items that she could drain for power as well as new books and trinkets to study. Over the months she had grown significantly, enough to start attempting non animal forms and so began her first foray into attempting a humanoid body. Mostly so she could blend in better, although opposable thumbs would be nice. They were not desperately urgent however as Lilith could easily use her magic as a form of 'telekinesis' in which to manipulate things.

Not unexpectedly most of the body forms that Lilith attempted tended to look somewhat animal like, only the more powerful Mazoku could transform into something that looked human thanks to the power requirements. Lilith was not left without options and one of her more favorite body forms was a gray grim reaper type cloak and hood, mostly thanks to the fear it inspired in others. She even had a rattling voice and scythe to go along with it... such fun.

Harry seemed to find the humanoid animal bodies that Lilith manifested amusing and began suggesting various different body types from these 'Manga' books that he was reading at the library. Lilith decided to humor him and tried out body forms similar to those in the books, surprisingly the results were not bad looking despite their inhuman appearance. Lilith discovered another favorite body form of hers which was a red furred humanoid werewolf type body similar to Lord Beastmasters monstrous form but without the wings and cats tail.

The increasing power of Lilith did have its own side effects, the aura of coldness that Harry gave out began to get more powerful, to the point that you could feel a chill whenever you approached Harry and it was beginning to having an unnerving effect on the other kids at school. You could literately see how far the aura extended during break times as the other kids would circle around Harry whenever possible, leaving an empty space about ten foot in size around him.

The increasing alienation by everyone around him left him feeling bitter and began pushing Harry even firmer to the one person who still listened to him, Lilith.

It was during his dreams that Lilith showed him the wonders of some of the locations that she had been to or memories of places that her progenitor had been to. Harry could close his eyes and picture the heart wrenchingly beautiful golden statues of Azathoth, the great creator and one of the few things in existence that seemed to truly scare Lilith. Lilith had whispered secrets of the universe and magic to him during those dreams and by the time the summer holidays Harry's eyes had been opened to a much vaster world that often left him stunned by the scale and power of some of the entities out there.

The summer holidays came and the Dursleys left for a long summer holiday, having 'accidentally' forgotten to book a seat on the plane for Harry. On principle Lilith scared the living shit out of them for their rather obvious tactics but in the end left them to go off on their holiday. Harry was vaguely tempted to call a social worker but realized it wasn't worth the hassle to get the Dursleys in trouble for and it would be more comfortable to just hang around the house without the Dursleys. They spent the first week of the holidays in the house, Lilith had gotten a new game for the computer which she found to be particularly amusing.

Harry could see why, Dungeon Keeper was one of the games were you got to play as the bad guy, killing all the self righteous heroes. It seemed to be the sort of thing that was right up Lilith's street, although it was somewhat disturbing to see her constantly torturing any dragons that made the mistake of stepping into her dungeons, whether they be her own or enemy.

Not much else interesting happened until a week before Harry's birthday, he had been coming down the stairs for breakfast when he stepped on the half devoured corpse of an owl. Wincing in pure disgust, he lifted his foot and tried to wipe the bottom of it clean of the blood and gore.

Stepping into the kitchen he saw Lilith in her classic wolf body with a bloodied muzzle, he scowled at her. "That. Was. Disgusting," he pronounced clearly and with the full flavor of his disgust as he headed to the tap to wash his hands.

Lilith gave him a wolfish grin and then motioned her head towards the table._ 'A letter came for you...'_

Harry paused in using wet kitchen towel to wipe the soles of his feet and looked up at her. "A letter?" he questioned curious, wondering who would be sending him a letter. It wasn't like he usually got mail.

_'Parchment with green ink, magical, came with the owl,' _Lilith mental reply came into his head sounding somewhat curious herself, the magic wasn't holy but it wasn't something she was entirely familiar with either.

Harry tossed the wet kitchen towel in the bin and padded over to the table. "What the..." he muttered as he looked the letter over, Lilith was correct it was written in emerald green ink on some yellowish envelope.

_Mr H. Potter_

_Smallest Bedroom_

_4 Privet Drive_

_Little Whinging_

_Surrey_

Harry was more than a little disturbed that they knew where he slept but opened the letter and read the content carefully.

_**HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY**_

_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,_

_Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards)_

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

_Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_

Harry flipped to the other piece of paper which was indeed a list including cauldrons and robes.

Harry stared at the pieces of paper for a long moment as he struggled to put his thoughts together, after several minutes he finally had something deep and meaningful to say besides 'blah..'. Various emotions like elation and confusion rushed through him in short order.

"What. The. Fuck?" Harry stated each word singularly and with emphasis as he stared at the paper before turning back to Lilith. "Is this for real?"

_'There is real magic involved in the creation of the letter and I didn't do it, if thats what you asking'_ Lilith commented somewhat bored, the owl had come early this morning, so she'd had a few hours to examine and think about the letter.

"Wow..." Hurry impressed by the fact their was a school for magic somewhere, he knew Lilith had been searching high and low for magical stuff so it must be pretty well hidden where it was. Harry looked all the letter over for contact details which there were none.

"How are we supposed to get in contact with the school?" Harry asked plainly as he stood confused with the letter in his hands. "'We await your owl' what on earth does that mea...".

Harry paused as something came to him, he padded out into the corridor and looked at the half devoured owl. "Do you think they mean that owl?" he asked Lilith theoretically as he pointed to the dead owl, "how are we supposed to send that owl back?".

Lilith thought for a moment _'We could mail it back to them,' _she suggested with a dark amused sub tone.

Harry dropped his head and sighed in defeat before padding back into the kitchen.

Lilith tilted her head at him from her position on the floor _'What are you going to do now?'_ she asked curious.

Harry pulled a box out from one of the cupboards. "I'm going to do the only thing I can do. I'm going to have my frosted shreddies," he stated firmly as he set a bowl down on the table, "if they can't be bothered to put a return address in, then I can't be bothered trying to send a reply."

He headed to the fridge to get some milk, stopping to point at Lilith. "You on the other hand are going to get rid of that owl, because that is frankly disgusting and don't pretend you didn't do it deliberately," he stated firmly as he glared accusingly at Lilith.

Lilith gave another wolfish grin but faded out of existence to dispose of the owl whilst Harry collapsed into his seat and began making himself some cereal. Perhaps he was tired or something but he wasn't feeling as overwhelmed by this magical school as he thought he would be.

What sort of school had no contact details?

And what should he do next? Wait?

Hmmm... frosties...


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter name:** Bureaucracy strikes again.

Harry Potter was in somewhat of a unique position in the magical world. No, it was not because he defeated the Dark Lord Voldemort (although that also had its effect) but rather because he was a pure blood wizard orphan who had no contact or prior knowledge of the magical world.

The majority of pure blooded orphans from Voldemorts last reign of terror were put with any surviving family members and if they had no remaining family then they were put with a suitable magical family that could support them. It would be a controversy to stick pure blood children with Muggleborns let alone, god forbid it, Muggles themselves. The pure blood families would never have stood for it and it was them who held political power in the British Wizarding World.

Therefore the bureaucracy had assumed that anyone who was pure blooded would have sufficient knowledge and access to the Wizarding World, in order to send a reply back to Hogwarts. Unlike the Muggleborn who needed a representative to be sent out to each of the families explaining what the magical world was like, a most costly and timely enterprise.

Harry having been put with the Dudleys by Dumbledore for his own safety was somewhat of an exception and so therefore had absolutely no idea how to either respond or find out more about the school he had been informed of. In fact before he received the letter he wasn't sure that there were any other magic users in the world, he knew Lilith was searching magic in the world and all she had found was a few old magical items. It also didn't help that Lilith could be entirely closed lipped about certain subjects or knew how to worm her way around questions.

So, Harry having nothing he could do to respond to the letter decided to ignore it for now and get on with enjoying the rest of the summer playing his newest game Dungeon Keeper.

At the moment Harry was engaged in building a large dungeon ready to repel the waves of Knights and Wizards that the computer would be throwing against him soon, when the doorbell rang.

Harry sighed and tabbed the pause button as he got up, hoping this wasn't another group of Jehovah's witnesses or something. They seemed to come calling every single day, Harry was getting the sneaking suspicion that the Dursleys had put themselves on some sort of religious list or something. At least there were not exorcists turning up and trying to free him of demonic spirits, small mercies at least.

Harry came down the stairs, practically jumping down the stairs and opened the front door.

On the other side of the door was the largest man that Harry had ever set his eyes on, the giant of a man had to stoop slightly just to fit under the porch. There wasn't much that Harry could make out of his face as it was hidden behind a thick, long, shaggy mane of hair and tangled beard. The only features that were visible was his long thick nose and two eyes that glinted like black beetles.

"Harry!" bellowed the giant in greeting as he set eyes on the boy, "Yeh looking great!"

Harry stared at the giant that apparently knew him. "I'm sorry, do I know you?" Harry asked with simple confusion, pretty sure that he had never met the man before although oddly he felt a dim recognition with the man.

"Ah 'course las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," the giant thought out aloud to himself, "Yeh've grown, look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mum's eyes. Them were the days, yer..."

The giant slipped into a reminiscence that he quickly shook himself out of and turned to look at Harry who looked confused. "Havin' forgot to introduce meself haven't I?" the giant asked, "me names Rubeus Hagrid, I'm Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. Call me Hagrid, everyone does."

**That** caught Harry's attention and he looked sharply at the giant, having recognized the name of the school. "Did you say Hogwarts?" Harry asked for clarification whilst his mind reached out for a presence that was always at the back of his mind.

**'Lilith!'** Harry thought somewhat sharply to catch her attention

_'What?'_ Lilith replied curiously yet instantly, wondering what had caused such a sudden emotional stirring in her host.

**'Where are you??' **Harry demanded urgently.

Harry could feel Lilith's mental blink. _'I'm in Tibet' _Lilith responded cautiously _'Why?'_

It was Harry's turn to be confused. **'Why on Earth are you in Tibet?'**

_'I'm lizard hunting' _Lilith responded smugly_ 'be very, very quiet.'_

**'I... don't even want to know...'** Harry replied, have realized that calling Lilith on these random acts was more trouble than it was worth. **'I've got some man... Giant... here that says he knows about Hogwarts. Could you get back here?'**

There was half a second of silence that stood out in Harry mind before Lilith voice purred back in his mind._ 'So you need me huh?'_ her voice purred through his mind and Harry could feel the little hearts that she'd attached to that statement.

Harry was about to try to shoot a barb back at her when Lilith forcefully poked his mind, causing a sharp sting to rip through his mind. _'Big Boy heres talking... pay attention!' _Lilith bit into his mind as she dragged his attention back to Hagrid, the conversation between Lilith and Harry had only lasted a second thanks to its mental nature.

"Yeh, I said Hogwarts," Hagrid responded to Harry's question, "actually its the reason I'm here. Can I come in?"

Harry shrugged, he didn't know the man but Harry doubted much could go wrong with Lilith around. "Sure," Harry said stepping back from the door and gesturing for Hagrid to come inside whilst he rubbed his forehead to help clear the headache Lilith had caused.

He lead Hagrid into the front room and motioned Hagrid to take a seat on the couch, about the only piece of furniture that the giant would fit on. The couch squeaked loudly as Hagrid sat down on it and it was not springs type squeak but more like a living mouse. Something Hagrid quickly picked up on.

"Blimey, what was that?" Hagrid questioned as he quickly stood back up again and looked at the couch dubiously, "I ain't killed yer pet or nothin' have I Harry?"

"Don't worry about it," Harry answered with a shake of his head as he sat down on one of the other chairs, "its just the couch, had a little accident. Never been quite the same since."

Hagrid chuckled, "Yeh ain't been transfiguring the Muggles furniture have yer, eh?"

"No, presuming you are talking about transmogrification or transformation type magics, right?" Harry asked, not exactly recognizing the term but working out its meaning from the name pretty easily.

"Yeh, thats what transfiguring is all about," Hagrid agreed as he sat back down on the couch again, this time a little more daintily, "there be other types 'course, like metamor'smagnus and 'em animagus types. Yeh can learn abou' 'em at Hogwarts, hell, the 'ead of Gryffindor Professor McGonagall be a animagus."

A black raven swooped down from top of one of the cupboards and landed on the chair near to Harry, cawing softy bringing Hagrids attention to it. "'Ere Harry, what's that yeh got there?"

Harry smiled warmly at the raven. "This is my pet," Harry said stroking the raven under its beak, "Lilith, she's a _Corvus corax, _common raven. Beautiful isn't she?"

Hagrid smiled back at the boys enthusiasm, he knew what it was like to have exotic pets. "Yeh, be a right nice bird yer got there Harry," Hagrid said appreciatively, it was a beautiful raven and more interesting then all those cats or owls other students came to Hogwarts with. "Speakin' of birds, yer happen to get an owl with a letter?"

Harry tore his attention away from Lilith and nodded, "Yeah, I did."

"Ah, we was wondering back at the school whether yeh got yer letter. Yeh ain't sent an owl back and the owl we sent out ain't come back yet neither," Hagrid explained as he shifted he bum on the couch, damn thing was lumpy. Muggles could never make proper furniture, all of there stuff was made for twig people and the house was bloody freezing too! Maybe it was one of them Muggle Air Converter things he heard about, though he thought they only came in automobiles.

"Ah... yeah, got the letter... but the owl? One of the neighborhood dogs got it," Harry lied effortlessly, not wanting to deal with the effort of explaining that Lilith had ate it as a wolf, especially considering Hagrid though Lilith was a raven. "And I didn't know any other ways of getting in touch with Hogwarts."

"Ah, Bleedin' Hell," Hagrid grumbled, "daft birds ain't got 'nough senses to stay alive. And whats this about not knowing how yeh can get in touch with Hogwarts?"

"The letter only told us to send a reply by owl and I haven't got an owl, especially one smart enough to deliver mail," Harry explained his dilemma to Hagrid with some frustration as he stroked Lilith, "if you need a bird I could have stuck the letter on Lilith but damned if she knows where to fly."

"Nah, that'd never work. Yeh need a magical bird to fly yer mail, 'wise they get lost with yeh mail," Hagrid stated firmly as if an expert on the subject, which he most likely was.

Harry was hardly going to point out that Lilith was magical and so decided to go with the obvious question. "And where am I going to get a magical bird from?" he asked somewhat sarcastically, "I never knew anything about Hogwarts before you sent that letter to me, how am I supposed to get a magical bird if I haven't learned anything about magic yet?"

"What yeh mean yer never knew?" Hagrid asked curiously, looking confused under that mane of hair.

"I never knew about Hogwarts before the letter came," Harry spelled it out for him as Lilith hopped away from him and up onto the back of the chair.

"Did yeh never wonder where yeh parents learnt it all?" Hagrid asked incredulously.

"All what?" asked Harry confused.

"All what?" Hagrid replied shocked before his voice started rising, "now wait jus' one second! Yeh mean to tell me yeh didn't know yeh parents could do magic?!"

"My parents could do magic?" Harry confused as he seized onto that piece of information.

"Parents do magic?!? Of course yeh parents could do magic!" Hagrid blustered as if he had just heard the most ridiculous thing ever, "did them Muggles not tell yeh anything?"

"Well it would help if I knew what a Muggle was..." Harry deadpanned to the giant who was looking more and more agitated.

Hagrid calmed down slightly at the question, it was something he could handle. "A Muggle," said Hagrid, "It's what we call non-magic folk like them bloody Dursleys. They never told yeh nought? Yeh don't know about _our_ world?"

"_Our_ world?" Harry asked cautiously, having the feeling that Hagrid was talking about some magical world.

Hagrid rubbed his face with the palms of his huge hand. "I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble getting' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don't know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh... but someone's gotta... yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'."

"Not knowing what?" Harry asked, getting frustrated.

"Well yeh gotta know. Right, it begins with... with a person called... but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows..."

"Who?" Harry asked interestedly and with some slight frustration. Hagrid was being almost as difficult to get answers out of as Lilith, speaking of Lilith the raven seemed to be leaning forward to listen into to the conversation.

"Well... I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does." Hagrid explained.

"Why not?" Harry pressed, not seeing why anyone would be afraid of a name and totally unafraid to use a name.

"Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went... bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than Worse. His name was..."

Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.

_'This is ridiculous... he's never going to say it. Offer him him pen and paper, then tell him to write it down,' _Lilith ordered, getting sick of tired of waiting for Hagrid to get to the point.

"Could you write it down?" Harry suggested, grabbing a pad of paper off the table next to his chair.

"Nah... can't spell it. All right... _Voldemort_," Hagrid shuddered, "Don' make me say it again. Anyway this wizard..."


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter Name:** Cold shivers

Harry breathed out slowly as Hagrid came to the end of his story, the only sound in the room was the slow ticking of the clock in the room as an oppressive silence filled the room.

A silence that was going to be short lived.

"You mean... my parents didn't die in a car crash?" Harry asked incredulously and with a slight hint of rising anger.

"Lily and James Potter dying in a car crash! Its an outrage! A scandal!" exclaimed Hagrid angrily as he bristled in his seat from the perceived insult towards the couples memory, "is that what 'em muggles have told yeh?!"

Harry didn't bother answering the question but instead scowled deeply as he took this new information in and decided how best to handle it. Lilith had taught him to seize every piece of information, alone it could be useless but when put together with other pieces then more of the overall picture becomes visible. That was something that Lilith herself had learned from her progenitor, Lilith had memories that hinted he liked piecing things together bit by bit over centuries and that he loved it when a plan came together.

"Dammit," Harry muttered whilst wondering what else his aunt and uncle had held from him, he shouldn't have bothered holding Lilith back from tormenting the Dursleys as much. He couldn't believe that they had hidden all this about his parents away from him... the bastards!

Whilst Harry was quietly fuming, Lilith's mind was on a completely different train of thought, whilst pleasantly bathing in his anger.

_'So that was how you got that interesting little scar of yours...' _Lilith mused into his mind as the raven steadied itself on the back of Harry's chair _'that explains the magical soul bond to that other soul of such negativity and the barrier that protects you from any mental contact with it'_

Harry twitched and narrowed his eyes as he realized that Lilith had been holding something back from him. Again. **'Soul bond?'** he asked mentally in his mind, not wanting Hagrid to get an idea that Lilith wasn't just a raven.

_'Yes... a soul bond'_

**'And you didn't tell me about this, why?' **Harry asked plainly.

_'You never asked...'_ Lilith replied with a sense of innocent, naivety in her voice and Harry could practically feel her carefree shrug. His annoyance and anger spiked an all time high until his mind twigged onto the conclusion that Lilith liked winding people up.

Harry mentally groaned and sank back deeper into his chair, letting his anger go. Lilith was going to be playing awkward again, like she had a habit of doing just so she could get a free meal. His only comfort was that at least she wasn't saying that it was a secret, but rather just being evasive. That meant she'd probably reveal it at sometime in the near future but for now he turned his attention to Hagrid who was looking agitated and muttering about turning muggles into pigs.

"Hagrid?..." Harry called out hesitantly to attract Hagrid attention, the friendly giant paused in his mumblings and turned to the vulnerable sounding voice. "...you couldn't tell me about my parents could you?"

Lilith gagged in this mind. _'That was so sweet you'd have thought it was coated it in sugar...' _she grumbled at Harry's acting, left unsaid was the fact she really wasn't impressed by it.

**'Hush!' **Harry replied with a firm mental tone whilst slightly leaning forward waiting for Hagrids reply, he had always wanted to know what his parents were like and this was a prime opportunity to find out.

"Well er... Yeh parents were some of the best people I've met," Hagrid said startled by the question and shifted awkwardly around in his seat before he started reminiscing, "Yep, Lily and James were some of bes' people bless their souls. Great witch and wizard the pair of 'em."

Hagrid paused in thought as he tried to think of what to say next, he knew he wasn't the most articulate person but he tried to put his memories into words.

"Meet at Hogwarts they did, yeh know?" Hagrid asked almost rhetorically, "course yer mother..." Hagrid laughed softly and perhaps a bit sadly at the memory, "now she couldn't stand yer father at first. Yeh see yer father was a bit of a trouble maker.. all harmless 'course but yeh mum was a sticker for the rules. Yer father was a great Quidditch player back in the day, coulda gone professional he could."

"Weren't till their... what was it... fifth? Year that yer mother started to fall for him."

"Course it were dark times back then Harry... yeh." Hagrid said leaning back in his chair and looking serious. "You-know-who was in his prime yeh see. People going missin' all the time, it was right 'orrible. People back then began livin' in the moment, cause if yer weren't with you-know-who then yeh didn't know when they could come for yeh. So yer parents started a family with you..." Hagrid pointed towards him, "pretty much as soon as..."

Hagrid frowned at the upcoming memories. "Had a house in Godric's Hollow, ain't nothin' but a burnt out shell nowadays but back then it was hidden by old, powerful magic. Wasn't enough, You-know-who found out and then he turns up at yer family home."

Hagrid was silent for a bit along with Harry, the rest really didn't need saying and both were quietly thankful for that. Lilith meanwhile was deviously plotting as her kind are prone to doing, the last fragment of conversation had caught her attention particularly ancient concealing magics, she'd be looking into those as soon as possible.

"Why was Voldemort stopped by me?" Harry asked quietly, "Why not someone else? Surely someone else must have been able to..."

Hagrid shuddered at the name, "Don't say that name, it gives me the begeebies," Hagrid stated firmly before sighing, "and for yeh question, sorry Harry I don't know. Biggest mystery that, why yeh a tiny baby could defeat you-know-who when no one else can."

There was an awkward silence between the pair as neither had the answer.

_'Ask him what else in exists in the magical world' _Lilith mentally prodded as she lurked behind Harry, she was trying to gather as much intelligence as possible and wanted to know what she had failed to detect when she had been out searching for magical items or areas in the world.

"So besides the school, exactly what else is there in the magical world?" Harry asked in a tone that was interpreted by Hagrid as a polite changing of the topic, which is something that the half giant was grateful for as he disliked remembering the war.

"Well of course theres Hogwarts and then theres Diagon, Hogsmead, a few conclaves scattered round, Azkaban, the Ministry of Magic and loadsa houses," Hagrid stated, going quiet on some of those names cluing Lilith and even Harry that some of those places were possible not entirely pleasant or at least that Hagrid was not entirely fond of them.

_'Hmmm... not much then' _Lilith mused inside Harry head, of course she was comparing this to her progenitors memories which could remember entire magical continents. She was also considerably annoyed that she didn't detect these places and made it a priority to learn how they had been hidden from her own senses. Usually Mazoku are the magical equivalent of bloodhounds, able to smell and track magic down from considerable distances, so to fail so miserably was rather off putting.

A gleam came to Harry's eye as he thought of something, "You say this Hogwarts is a school of magic, right? Could I learn spells like phase shield or dimensional gate?" Harry asked eagerly picking out two spell that he had learned about in one of his manga books.

Hagrid looked a bit confused, "I ain't ever heard of 'em spells but Dumbledore will know 'em, great man Dumbledore is and he'll know 'em spells. Just see," He assured the boy confidently, his belief in Dumbledore that strong and for good reason too.

Harry pursed his lips nervously, "Do you think I'll be any good at magic Hagrid? I mean... I never even heard about the magical world until today," He asked seeking confidence, truth be told that he had already cast ancient spells far, far beyond most peoples level of knowledge or ability and had a significant advantage in having a friendly Mazoku aid him.

Hagrid smiled brightly, "Yer going be a great wizard Harry. Look 'ere Harry, yeh accidentally transfigured yeh couch that's some 'eavy magic so yer worry yer 'ead none and yeh eyes, don't think I missed 'em yeh be a metamor'smagnus. I can see yer going keep Professor McGongall busy. Yeh parents would be so proud they would, specially yeh father" Hagrid announced firmly with belief, mistaking the Mazoku-esq eyes for a metamorphamagnus transformation. Truth be told he'd seen things like that from that from Andromeda's little girl regularly ever since she started attending Hogwarts, the girl looked different practically every day of the week.

Harry teared up a bit at the confidence the man had in him and stepped closer to Hagrid to hug him. Whilst Lilith in raven form recoiled slightly from all the touchy stuff going on in front of her. Why did the humans have to have so many blasted positive emotions?

Hagrid wrapped his arms around the boy to comfort him and got a wave of coldness was over him, far more powerful than that which had been bugging him the whole time he'd been in the Dudley's house. The biggest difference is that by contact he could tell that Harry was the source, not a muggle 'air contractor'. Of course since giants are rather hardy creatures and heavily resistant to magical effects, the effect on Hagrid, a half giant, wasn't anywhere as bad as it would be on a human but still he noticed it.

"Thank you," Harry sniffed a bit as he calmed down a few moments later and stepped back a bit to give Hagrid some room.

"Yeh, welcome Harry," Hagrid said warmly, looking over the boy whom he practically considered family before shifting topic, "...'ere Harry didn't want to ask this but whats with the coldness thing."

Harry widened his eyes innocently, working out what Hagrid was talking about pretty quickly. "Isn't that normal? I thought that was part of being a wizard," he questioned.

"Nah, that ain't normal." Hagrid replied frowning in thought, he knew Harry and knew he was harmless but still something cold niggled at him. He couldn't think of anything that would do that but truth be told his magical education was rather... poor.

"Ooh... " Harry looked downcast, he had hoped somewhat that he would seem vaguely normal amongst other people who could do magic but it seemed between this boy-that-lived business and his aura that this wouldn't be the case. He had actually noticed that people seemed to get discomforted whenever they approached him and it wasn't hard especially with his new knowledge of magic to put two and two together. He had heavy suspicions that it came from Lilith and his bond with her because she could cause similar if more pronounced discomfort when she choose too, he had asked but she could be beautifully evasive when she didn't want to answer something.

Hagrid panicked as his wards emotional state took a sudden plummet and stood up, patting the boy on the shoulder. "'ere, 'ere. It ain't nothing bad, yeh the boy who lived. Probably something to do with yeh defeating you know who.." he tried desperately to reassure the boy, he hadn't meant to upset the boy any.

Harry looked somewhat down still, not really having been cheered up by Hagrids statement.

Hagrid decided to try from a different approach, "'Ere Harry, don't worry yerself abou' it. I myself ain't the epptermie... epperne... epper... the peak of whats normal. Yeh didn't think that all wizards are as big as me didya? No and yer are no different... there are many different types of people in the wizarding world. Come on buck up Harry. I'll treat yeh to some ice cream when we go to Diagron."

"Diagon? You mentioned that place earlier," Harry questioned curiously looking at the large bearded man in front of him, his curiosity getting the better of him. It always did. If Lilith was a wolf then Harry was most certainly a cat and one with near terminal curiousity.

"Aw, blimey. Did I forget to tell yeh abou' Diagon alley? It's a big wizarding street down in London, it were most of the firs' years get their school supplies and were yeh be getting yers," Hagrid stated as he explained the situation. He kept forgetting that Harry had grew up with little to no knowledge of the wizarding world and everyone had assumed that the Dursleys would have told him.

Harry considered his options and whether or not he wanted to attend this magic of school, however in the end he really had little choice. He wanted to learn more about magic and this school seemed to be the only way to achieve the goal. Harry sighed and then nodded, "Alright, let me get dressed into better clothing..."


	13. Chapter 12

Harry jammed a baseball cap down over his head as he looked in the mirror, finally he was satisfied that the cap would have the effect of hiding his scar whilst still looking rather normal.

"Okay, I'm good. Lets go," Harry stated giving his image in the mirror one last good look over before turning his cat slit eyes to the person next to him.

"Yeh don't need to do that," Hagrid commented frowning after watching him hide his scar. He didn't like that Harry felt he needed to hide his scar to travel to the wizarding world.

"Yeah, well like you said anyone who sees my scar is likely to know I'm the boy that lived. I'd rather avoid that sort of attention, I've seen the news. Being famous is nothing but trouble," Harry commented absentmindedly as he turned to face Hagrid. Actually it was Lilith that would much rather he avoid that type of attention but he could hardly say that though.

"Yeh the boy-who-lived yeh don't need to hide. Jus' not right... not right, " Hagrid muttered under his breath but was somewhat pleased that the boy had some strong opinions just like his mother and seemed equally unlikely to be shaken from them. He shook his head of the memories before his voice raised, "Alright, lets get going then. Floo powder be the quickest way, this is how yeh do it."

Hagrid reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small bag that was dwarfed by his large dustbin sized hands. He carefully poured out some dust from the bag into the palm of his hand. "Now, this 'ere is floo powder. Yeh throw it into the fire and then call out yeh destination."

Harry nodded as he took in the information and then suddenly looked dubiously around, "We haven't got a fireplace," Harry pointed out, wondering if they should set the carpet on fire. Lilith was obviously having a slightly negative effect on him.

Hagrid blinked and looked around the Dursleys living room. "Gulpin' gargoyles... I hadn't notice that..." He commented as he looked around the room again with a puzzled expression on his face, an odd thing to see on such a huge man, "this house really hasn't got a fireplace. Coulda sworn I saw chimney on yeh house roof."

"Its behind that," Harry pointed out helpfully to one of the walls. "But its been bricked up ages ago."

Hagrid looked at the wall that Harry pointed out with an appraising eye, "Heh, we'll just make a new fireplace. Jus' don' be tellin' anyone. I ain't exactly allowed to do this yeh understand?"

Harry nodded eagerly, wanting to see some more magic used. Lilith who had been silently watching the whole thing, took this moment to glide down from her current perch and onto Harry's shoulder. Her black raven form looking unnaturally aware and curious of what was about to happen

"Alright," Hagrid said, more to himself than anyone else as he took a deep breath and readied his umbrella. He hadn't done this in a while.

He reached out with his umbrella and tapped the center of the wall where Harry had said the fireplace once was, what happened next could only be described as the wall /warping/ as a hole opened up from the point where Hagrid's umbrella had touched. The hole expanded within seconds until the fireplace was once again accessible.

Hagrid stood back and was beaming with pride, "Yer... thats real magic Harry," he commented as he looked over his handy work, "what do yeh think?"

Harry couldn't help smiling, "That was pretty good," he said with all honesty to the giant man standing next to him.

"Yer right. It was pretty good, wasn't it?" Hagrid agreed, looking at Harry and then back at the fireplace. He was extremely chuffed that it had worked out successfully.

Lilith raven form could be seen looking at the newly created hole in the wall. Her mental voice echoed inside Harry's mind _'I'll say, you just witnessed space-time warping and violations of thermodynamics coming from an umbrella.'_ she commented lazily and Harry could just about hear her mind pondering something in the background.

He wondered what she was thinking about but before he got the chance to ask, Hagrid had already caused an explosion of fire to come out of the fireplace that startled him. Lilith was classically non-plussed by the large explosion of flames and just ruffled her feathers as the flames died down.

Hagrid looked over the fire he'd just started as it settled down before turning to Harry "Alright, yeh can go now. Ah be right behind yeh. Throw yer powder into the fire, walk in afterwards and say _'Diagon Alley'_"

Harry nodded as he took in the instructions and took a handful of the powder from Hagrid. He tossed the powder into the flames, watching as the flames suddenly became a roaring green. He took a deep breath and took a leap of faith on Hagrids words (plus the fact Lilith seemed perfectly happy for him to step in) before stepping in himself and shouting "Diagon Alley".

* * *

Images whizzed past Harry at ridiculous speeds, pictures of different rooms but he didn't have time to take them in as both him and Lilith were sent lurching out of the fireplace to land sprawled across the floor. Lilith flapped indignantly at the transportation method and hopped several steps away from Harry glaring, only to be promptly landed on by one rather familiar large wizard coming out of the floo behind them.

"Ugh," Moaned both recently ejected wizards as they recovered from their sudden meeting of the ground at a fair pelt.

Harry was the first to look up and take in his surroundings, they were in a dark and shabby pub, smoke drifted lazily through the air, coming from the various people who resided in the pub. Speaking of the people, all of them were looking at him and Hagrid, most likely because of their dramatic entrance. Some of them gave a little hooray as he pulled himself to his feet, seemingly unharmed, which Harry couldn't help but blush to.

He also could have sworn he heard "Bloody crazy Muggleborns" and "Crazy enough to use that floo" come from somewhere in the pub but he was still too disorientated to pin down exactly who had said it.

Shaking his head to clear it, he gave all of the room's occupants a quick glance over.

There were a bunch of wizards in ridiculous bright purple robes smoking from huge elaborate pipes nearest to him, they all looked fairly young and were the ones who gave him the little hooray.

Little over from them was a rather fat blonde woman who was gossiping and laughing with what he presumed were here female friends. Only the voice's gave away their true gender and even that was suspicious for one of them. Their clothing was equally disturbing with bright fuchsia silk fabric and eye bleeding green silk combining together to cause something that caused nausea just by looking at it.

Shuddering slightly, Harry focused his attention across to the bar. Sitting at the bar was a young woman, she looked to be in her early twenties and had black hair with red bangs. What set her apart from the rest of the bar was the fact she seemed to be wearing more ordinary clothing, a red tank top, black jeans and a large coat, as opposed to the bizarre clothing that everyone else seemed clad in.

Beyond her was what Harry presumed to be the bar keeper, he looked to be quite old, was bald and generally reminded Harry of a gummy walnut.

Harry was distracted from his room appraisal by groaning from behind him as Hagrid pulled himself to his feet.

"'Ere, Harry. Sorry, I think I killed yeh bird…" Hagrid said regretfully, holding something in his hands as Harry turned to face him. Harry felt a pang of alarm, he hadn't considered if Lilith was in danger. What if she was dead? Could she die? What would he d...

_'Didn't kill me'_ Lilith murmured irritated into his mind, his panicked questions not really helping her rather murderous mood. _'Though I think I felt my organs implode…'_

"Argh!" Hagrid exclaimed as his hand was rather violently pecked from the inside as Lilith struggled to get out of the huge dustbin sized hands that encompassed her. Moments later, she'd gotten Hagrid to open his hands enough that she could squirm out and flap weakly to Harry's shoulders. The raven glared banefully at Hagrid from its position on Harry's shoulder, its very posture promised immanent pain. So much so that Harry was worried that Lilith might attack Hagrid but she seemed to be staying her ground and was content in giving Hagrid a hateful look.

The look that Hagrid gave it back however was much more thoughtful as he obviously considered something until he shook his head and turned away to head towards the bar. He stood along side the red and black haired woman who glared at him as she nursed a pint of something, Hagrid was completely oblivious to the hateful gaze she was giving him thanks to the fact he towered over her and that her gaze was aimed somewhere on his coat due to his sheer height.

Harry followed up behind Hagrid and when he approached her hateful gaze switched to him. Amber eyes locked with his cat slit ones and a flicker of curiosity past through her eyes behind the hatred before disappearing as she snorted and looked back at her drink. Harry couldn't help but wonder why she seemed so... resentful towards everyone else in this pub.

"Tom, yeh bleedin' floo's messed up again," Hagrid complained, more than a little put off that he'd been thrown to the floor.

"Not messed up again, Hagrid. Still hasn't been fixed, been putting complaints into the ministry to have it fixed and nothing seems to get done. You know how its is," Tom explained the situation whilst rubbing his amazingly shiny bald head.

"Ministry of magic messing up as usual. You shouldn't expect the Ministry to do anything. Save screw you over," the black and red haired woman practically spat out before slamming a handful of gold coins that Harry had never seen before. "The bill," she stated clearly, referring to the coins before she got up and headed towards the stairs.

Tom didn't raise an eyebrow at his customer behavior as he scooped the coins up with a deft motion and put them in the till before reaching for a glass. "The usual then, Hagrid?" He asked his long time customer.

"Can't Tom, I'm on Hogwarts business," Hagrid stated proudly before putting his hand down on Harry's shoulders, indicating that he was taking the boy around Diagon.

Tom peered curiously at Harry for a moment before shuddering and then looked back at Hagrid puzzled before shrugging, "That time of year again then?" he asked referring to the beginning of the school year.

There were the occasional number of students who had no-one suitable to take them around Diagon Alley and so the teachers took turns taking them, ensuring that they got all the stuff they required. Though Tom could have sworn that it was Professor Snapes turn to take students around Diagon this year not Hagrids. Perhaps Dumbledore had finally decided to stop that particular piece of cruelty?

Although then again Professor Snape did like Slytherins and this boy gave Tom all the same uneasy feelings as most Slytherins.

"Yeh, getting' busy with it all," Hagrid stated before sighing, "Anyways, must be off."

"Take care," Tom called as the pair left the pub through a back door and walked into a small courtyard.

Harry looked around, there was nothing in the courtyard except a few dustbins and some weeds. He was about to ask Hagrid why they were here when he noticed Hagrid was counting bricks on the wall above the dustbins.

"Three up... two across..." he muttered. "Right, stand back, Harry."

He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella, once again a hole appeared in the middle of the brick that seemed to warp and distort around its each. The hole expanded rapidly until it had formed an arch that lead out onto a cobbled street full of strange colorful people, bizarre creatures and magical perihelia as far as the eye could see.

Harry turned to look at Hagrid in amazement.

"Welcome," said Hagrid, "to Diagon Alley."


	14. Chapter 13

_'Intriguing...'_ muttered Lilith, distracting Harry from the sudden influx of sights.

**'What?'** Harry mentally questioned his companion who had been oddly silent recently.

There was a momentary silence in his mind before Lilith responded. _'As we went through the portal behind us, there was a strong peak in black magic, that faded the moment we finished transiting. Additionally it seems we're outside of normal space-time, we're inside a magical pocket that's bigger on the inside than the outside.'_

_'It's also almost undetectable from the outside as well,'_ Lilith mentioned a moment later thoughtfully, _'I've never seen anything like this.'_

**'So... Impressive?'** Harry asked curiously, he knew she had a far higher bar for impressive magical stunts. If it caught her attention it was likely to be something rare or powerful.

_'Very...'_ Lilith responded wryly as she extended her presence further down Diagon Alley, probing and sampling the various magical elements around, _'the rest of the magic however seems much more mundane.'_

Harry ran his green cat slit eyes over the rows of shops with their bright magical displays, signs declaring strange magical items prices and equal bizzare customers that swarmed around the shops, practically filling the alley. One shop had a stacks of cauldrons lying outside it whilst another had a bunch of boys eagerly looking at... a broomstick? A soft hoot caught his attention to a shop with a huge selection of various owls, the sign above proudly proclaiming 'Eeylops Owl Emporium – Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown and Snowy'.

"Yep, them are owls. One of the best pets yeh can get, they can deliver mail for yeh. Dead useful." Hagrid explained knowledgeably as he caught where Harry was looking, "Come on Harry, Gotta get to Gringotts. Yeh'll need some money if yer to buy yer school supplies."

"What's Gringotts?" Harry asked confused, looking up at the giant next to him as they began walking down the crowded street. To be honest, it wasn't as bad as it seemed since the combination of Hagrid's sheer size and Harry's aura meant they had a comfortable space around them.

"Blimey, I didn't tell yeh about Gringotts?" Hagrid asked as he looked down to Harry, only to see the shake of Harry's head. "Sorry, Harry. Well Gringotts is the Wizarding Bank."

Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise, "Wizards have a bank?"

Hagrid laughed, a large booming laugh that echoed down the alley and gathered them more than a few stare. "Cause wizards a bank, Harry. Yeh didn't think that they just hide all their money at home?" He questioned amused before shaking his big shaggy head, "Gringotts is the wizard bank. Run by goblins it is."

"Goblins?" Harry questioned, not hugely surprised and he had a feeling that he'd meet a number of other fantasy creatures that weren't so fantasy. "You mean goblins as in short, green... things?"

"Yeah, mean buggers when they want to be. Never mess with a goblin Harry. Thats why Gringotts is the safest place in the world – 'cept maybe Hogwarts. As a matter of fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts business," Hagrid drew himself up proudly, "He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetchin' you – getting things from Gringotts – knows he can trust me, see"

_'Not one to boast much is he?'_ Lilith mused coolly inside his mind as they walked along side Hagrid.

**'Seems he really respects this Dumbledore character'** Harry thought back, **'It's probably something similar to how people boast about knowing celebrates or something'**

"Ah, 'ere we are, Gringotts," Hagrid announced standing outside a large snow-white building that dwarfed all the other building's around it. The doors where huge burnished bronze doors and standing besides them were two strange creatures that Harry assumed were goblins, different from the mythological ones by their facial hair and long fingers.

"That's a goblin," Hagrid said quietly as they walked up the snow white steps of the building to the huge bronze doors which were opened by the two goblins who bowed as the pair walked past. Beyond that door was yet another door, this time silver with an inscription written on it.

_Enter, stranger, but take heed_

_Of what awaits the sin of greed,_

_For those who take, but do not earn,_

_Must pay most dearly in their turn,_

_So if you seek beneath our floors_

_A treasure that was never yours,_

_Thief, you have been warned, beware_

_Of finding more than treasure there._

"Like I said, yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it," said Hagrid.

Lilith shifted restlessly on Harry's shoulder, he was about what was up when her bemused voice entered his head. _' I wonder, I wonder... Has anyone ever tried stealing the doors?' _Lilith wondered malicious bemusement as she noted the large variety of nasty spells covering the doors.

Harry rolled his eyes at that and followed Hagrid deeper yet into the bank. **' If you must, do so when my life is not in jeopardy'**

_' As if yo... ' _Lilith's sentence was suddenly cut off and her body on his shoulder suddenly froze. She chuckled inside his head a few moments later as her body began moving again. _' Amusing!'_ she declared, excitement clear in her voice, _' Forget seeking the treasures beneath these floors, I'm going seek the DRAGONS! Hehe... such fun to play with even if they seem to be dumb creatures '_

Lilith paused in mock thought, _' Then again, all dragons are savage animals. So not much difference.'_

**'Lilith...'** Harry tried to put a warning tone in his voice to discourage her from whatever it was she was planning on doing. He doubted it would work since she never paid any attention when he had tried to stop her before and so was somewhat surprised plus suspicious when she calmed down inside his head without even a protest. Great, now he'd probably cemented the idea into her deranged little head.

Harry stepped up to the counter along with Hagrid with a sense of paranoia hanging over him, the bird on his shoulder acting like an innocent albeit highly trained raven.

"Morning," said Hagrid to the first free goblin along the counter. "We've come ter take some money outta Mr Harry Potter's safe."

"You have his key, sir?" the goblin asked, blinking up at the large man and then turning to look at Harry himself before it looked back at Hagrid.

"Wait, I have a vault? With money of my own?" Harry asked surprised, "How come I never heard of this? I thought I was getting some money off the school funds or something..."

The Goblin looked up surprised by the barrage of questions that interrupted its usual routine and peered closely at Harry through it glasses before its eyes flickered up onto the raven which rested on his shoulders.

_' Oh you can see me can't you little goblin... ' _Lilith whispered predator like into Harry's mind, _' I don't scare or bother you though. Hmmm... '_

The goblin's gaze stayed there for a long moment although it made no sign of actually realizing what the raven was before it slowly returned its gaze to Harry's face. "I'm afraid I can not release that information sir without proof of your identification," the goblin stated in a authoritarian tone, "if you have the key?" he asked in a way that said the key was suitable identification.

"Right," Hagrid exclaimed as the pairs eyes focused on him and he started patting down his pockets, removing the occasional thing. The goblin wrinkled his nose as Hagrid dropped a packet of battered sausages and moldy biscuits across its book of numbers. "Ah, got it!" Hagrid exclaimed at last, holding the tiny key up.

The goblin peered closely at the key with its glasses before nodding. "That seems to be in order."

"So about the vault?" Harry asked curiously, he had never owned a bank account of any description especially not a magical one.

The goblins long fingers brushed the moldy biscuits and sausages off his book before tapping it once hard with his finger, the writing on the book faded out and new writing appeared in its place. "Ah..." murmured the goblin as he flicked through the pages, "the vault your key opens was created by your parents, Mr James Potter and Mrs Lily Potter, in your name, Mr Harry Potter, as a fund for when you went to Hogwarts, school of witchcraft and wizardry," the goblin gave a little sneer at the name, "vault contains four thousand galleons, twenty five thousand five hundred silver sickles and thirty four thousand five hundred and ten bronze knuts."

Harry gapped, "That... sounds... like an awful lot of money," he said weakly, feeling a little faint. He doubted the Dursleys knew he had this sort of money behind him or they'd have stolen it all long ago.

The goblin raised an eyebrow and steeped its long fingers together, "Twenty seven thousand, eight hundred and fifty pounds at current exchange rate," the goblin offered helpfully.

_' You know Harry, that's the funds your parents left for your education. Who knows what other funds you have access to? Hmmm?'_ Lilith purred silkily into his mind, Harry could tell that she was enjoying this.

Harry's mouth dried, "Ar-Are there any more vaults I have access to?... I mean... did my parents have any vaults of their own?" Harry asked nervously.

The goblin tilted his head at him before he reached over to grab a sheet of parchment and lay it in front of him along with a needle. "This is a magically enchanted piece of parchment, place a drop of your blood on the paper and it will reveal all the Gringott vaults attached to your name," explained the goblin disinterestedly.

"'Ere Harry, I'm not sure yer supposed ter be doing this. Dumbledore did say ter get yeh 'nough money to get yer school stuff," Hagrid spoke up having silent watched the whole interaction and now worried about Harry messing about with his finances, he didn't want the boy to end up spending all his money.

"I just want to find out if my parents left me anything, is that so wrong?" Harry pleaded, staring at Hagrid with great big pupp... er... kitty eyes that shone brightly. Even though none human eyes would creep some people out, they had the desired effect on Hagrid.

_'Devious...'_ Lilith mentally smirked, ruffling her feathers, _' I like it '_

"W-Well I.. er... All right, but yer not ter be taking anything out. Dumbledore's orders. Yep," Hagrid stated, nodded his head as he tried to reassert his authority.

Harry hugged the larger man, "Thank you, Hagrid!"

"Erm.. well... yea'.." The giant stuttered embarrassed, "best get on with it then."

Harry nodded and stepped away, pricking his finger on the needle and letting a few drops of blood drop down on the piece of parchment where they were absorbed. He didn't have to wait long for the results as three lines of text appeared on the piece of parchment. The goblin picked up the sheet of parchment and looked it over for a moment.

"Hmmm... yes," murmured the goblin, "it seems Mr Harry Potter that you have three accounts in your name. The first is your school fund, of which you already know about and has a withdrawal limit of five hundred galleons per year. The second is the Potter family vault which contains one hundred and sixty thousand galleons, four thousand nine hundred and seventy seven silvear sickles and zero bronze knuts. Thats the six hundred fifty seven thousand, three hundred twenty one pounds at current exchange rate. The account also contains a variety of other items including books and jewelry, however most is unlisted. As the last surviving member of the Potter family you will gain access to that vault when you come of age at your seventeenth birthday."

The goblin returned to its book and flipped through a few pages before turning to face Harry again with sneer. "The last remaining vault was gifted to you by your godfather, one Sirius Black. Vault contents include ten thousand galleons, one rubber chicken and a charmed inflatable sheep," the goblin wrinkled his nose, "this is also unavailable until you come of age at seventeen."

The goblin steeped his long fingers again and awaited Harry's response.

"Who is Sirius Black?" Harry asked confused as to why someone would give him so much money and such... weird items, "why would he give me this?"

"It's is not my job to speculate on wizarding society young master," the goblin commented carefully as he narrowed his eyes, "I have told you all I know about this matter."

Harry turned to face his giant companion who was looking distinctly unhappy all of a sudden. "Hagrid?" he asked as an open ended question.

"Bad blood. Bad blood, the lot of 'em. Yeh just forget about Sirius Black, no good never came from asking about people in Azkaban, Mark my words," Hagrid stated angry faced and firm in his belief.

Harry frowned and asked the obvious question, "Azkaban?"

Hagrid face became stormy, "I shouldn't have said that... I should not have said that..." he mutters angry with himself.

The goblin coughed, "Well, now if that is all, I'll have someone show you to the vaults."

Hagrid suddenly looked up as if he'd only just remembered something.

"Ah! I've also got a letter from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. "It's about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen."

Lilith could sense a peak of annoyance from the goblin as it took the letter off Hagrid and read it through carefully, the annoyance abating as it got further through the letter until it handed the letter back to Hagrid. "Very well," it said, now actually knowing what the giant was actually going on about, "I've have someone take you down to both vaults."

What followed was a hair raising race through the tunnels located beneath the bank, it became immediately obvious what the goblins meant by treasure beneath their floors. The vaults had to be miles beneath London and the ride down was a wild one, so much so that Hagrid was looking somewhat worse for the wear. When flying through the tunnels, they narrowly missed getting fried by a dragon as their cart zoomed passed it, Lilith's accuracy was somewhat greater than the dragons and not limited by pesky things such as physical location. One blast of scalding pain later and the result was one rampaging dragon crashing through the vaults above them somewhere as its handlers tried to control the beast with little luck.

Interesting, there goblin guide seemed somewhat uninterested by the commotion caused and even seemed somewhat irritated.

"Wizards insisting on dragon for protection... protection... ha! More damage..." The goblin quietly grumbled under his breath as the cart rolled to a stop and the goblin got out, heading towards a vault.

"Key please," asked the goblin holding his hand out waiting for the key which Hagrid dropped into his hand. The goblin then turned around, inserted the key and with a deft twist opened the vault door. A huge cloud of green smoke came billowing out and as it cleared Harry's eyes were assaulted by many shiny things. It was one thing to be told how much money you had in your vault but it was an entirely different thing to see it for yourself, four thousand galleons looked awe inspiring in person.

"All yours," smiled Hagrid.

"Its... its incredible," Harry breathed as his eyes trailed over it.

"Well yeh better grab some," Hagrid told him, "The gold ones are galleons, seventeen silver sickles to a galleon and twenty-nine knuts to a sickle. Its easy enough."

**'Easy for who?'** Harry thought a bit disgruntled as he shoved some into a bag.

_'Well obviously not you, ' _Lilith thought back in a smug way as Harry shoved a last handful into the bag, her attention was predominately taken by scouting out all the vaults. She was planning which vaults she would hit in her grand robbery, it would be glorious... hundreds of vaults robbed, security helpless before her and on her way out... she'd nick those shiny silver doors. Her raven body's eyes gleamed at the thought, the sheer bedlam such an event would cause in this small little world.

After Harry had finished filling his bag, they got back in the cart and one heart stopping trip later arrived outside another vault, this time much deeper in the depths of Gringotts.

"Stand back please!" the goblin announced importantly, checking to see if everyone was out of the way before stroking the door with one finger. The door just melted away.

"If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there," the goblin explained at Harry's look.

"How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Harry couldn't help but ask.

"About once every ten years," the goblin replied with a rather nasty grin.

Lilith chuckled cruelly into his mind as something caught her attention, _'I think they're going to check these vaults in the next three or four years. They should probably check the one behind us first…'_

Harry frowned, turning to look behind him to find out what on earth she was talking about. The sight of another vault door was all he needed to make sense of her words and he paled at the implications. Lilith snorted softly, Harry was still to soft on some things. How was she going to show him how to have a good time if a little human death upset him?

Harry shuddered almost as if sensing her thoughts, turning back towards the vault Hagrid had walked into just in time to see him stuff something into his coat pocket. **'I wonder what that was?'** He thought loudly wanting to get Lilith's attention.

_' Just some weak and useless magical transformation item,'_ Lilith replied dismissively, not really seeing why such an item was in a high security vault, _' I've got better magical junk if you want some... '_

Harry hmmm'd his interest as he followed Hagrid back to the cart and up to the surface.


	15. Chapter 14

The light blinded Harry momentarily as he stepped out into the bright sunlight streets of Diagon Alley, not much had changed since he'd entered the goblin bank. The streets were still crowded with a veritable swarm of color as wizards and witches traipsed around in colors that would give muggle fashion designers a heart attack. Harry was left idly wondering if the wizarding world had been cruelly affected by the sixties and never recovered, or whether they were just this color blind. Sadly, he suspected the later.

"Alright," Hagrid muttered, sounding a bit sickly, "firs' thin's firs'. Yer goin' ter be needin' yeh robes. Bes' place fer that be Ma'am Malkin's, this way Harry."

With that the huge man stepped into the crowd, initially looking like he was wading through water until the crowd noticed him and started going around him. Harry just stayed behind Hagrid in his 'wake', having to jog to keep up with Hagrid's walking pace. Otherwise he was worried that he would get swept away by the busy moving crowd of people that packed the alley.

Lilith who was resting on Harry's shoulder suddenly disappeared from existence, there was no phasing out like one of those teleporters that you saw on Star Trek. No, this was quite simply there one second and then completely gone the very next. Not that this was particularly important as Harry barely registered her disappearance, so used to the fact that she would come and go as she would please. The part of him that did register her disappearance was somewhat concerned that she would be inflicting some form of bedlam on the area as she was prone to do whenever she was 'hungry'. As long as it didn't come back and bite him in the ass, Harry really didn't want to know some of the stuff that his companion got up to, as he suspected he wouldn't like it in the slightest.

The disappearance of Lilith occupied his mind for long enough that he almost crashed into Hagrid when the larger man suddenly stopped in the middle of the street. He wasn't the only one that nearly crashed as the flow of the crowd was once again forced to move around this giant man standing in the middle of the street.

"Ah, that be Ma'am Malkin's," Hagrid said, explaining his sudden stop. The shop itself looked a lot like most of the others in the alley except it had a range of surprisingly tasteful robes and other clothing in the window. "Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate 'em Gringotts carts."

He did look a bit nauseous and Harry was hopeful that he could at least get clothing without some sort of epic disaster so he nodded before entering the shop.

The shop seemed considerably larger inside than the outside had suggested and there was an even larger selection of clothing hanging on racks, shelves or on manikins all around the shop. A quick glance around the shop showed it to be occupied by a group of girls, some very good looking girls his mind pointed out, what looked like one of their mothers and a few shop assistants who were busy rushing around doing their jobs. With nothing better to do, Harry walked towards the group hoping to be noticed and eventually get served.

"Stop bloody poking me!" cried one of the girls, the most distinctive of the lot with bright pink hair, as she moved out the way of the assistant witches needle, much to said witches frustration

"Now young lady, if you don't stay still then I'm never going to be able adjust the robes to you."

"Not when you keep stabbing me in the bloody boob," replied the girl scathing, "I'll just adjust myself to fit."

The older woman standing next to the group muttered something quietly that Harry couldn't make out, although the pink haired girl must have heard it well enough as she turned bright red.

"Mother!" screamed the outraged pink person in the way only a mortally embarrassed child could but she eventually settled down to get adjusted with a scowl on her face.

The lull was enough for the battle between her assistant and her customer to cease taking up most of her concentration, and madam Malkin brain then kindly informed her of an unnerving chill that had settled down her spine. Turning around curiously she noticed Harry standing behind her and was all business again, "Oh hello dear, here for your Hogwarts robes?"

Harry wordless nodded.

"Well get on the stool next to the young _lady_ and I'll be over to serve you in a moment," She informed him cheerfully before wandering down to the back of the store.

The pink haired girl scowled at the retreating shop owner and was vowing to burn the store to the ground under her breath. Harry gave the girl a concerned and alarmed look at the vow, it should probably be noted that Harry's sense of what is an honest threat and what is merely exaggeration had been somewhat warped by Lilith's actual willingness to carry out any threat no matter how extreme.

Whilst Harry was worrying about the girl, one of her friends turned her attention from the dresses lining the side of the shop and focused on Harry as something vastly more interesting, "So your a first year huh?" questioned the fairly plain looking girl, she seemed to have that type of warm friendly voice to her that made you want to talk to her.

"Erm, yeah," Harry's voice on the other hand embodied just about every piece of teenage awkwardness possible. The only mercy was that his voice had yet to break.

The girl smirked a look that seemed out of place on her face, something slightly darker alight in her eyes. "So nervous?" she spoke inconspicuously with that same warm voice.

"Yeah," Harry nodded honestly and was rewarded with the girl's smile.

"I'm Laura. Laura White. A Hufflepuff," The girl announced herself before looking to the side of Harry, "and the girl rudely staring at you would be Nymphadora Tonks"

Harry turned just in time to see the pink hair girl change her center of attention from himself to the brunette Laura, "Don't call me Nymphadora!" she demanded, although her voice hinted that this was an old, old argument. That and the fact that Laura paid next to no attention to the comeback.

The pink haired girl snorted in a most unladylike way before turning to attention to Harry, scowling at the shop assistant sharply again because he presumed she'd just been stabbed again. "Sorry about this," Nymphadora apologized in what seemed like her friendliest manner so far, "I don't want to seem rude but your not a metamorphmagnus are you? I mean your eyes..."

The girl trailed off as Harry shook his head, deciding to set the score straight here. He had been told by Lilith that once you started lying that it requires more and more lies to sustain, especially if it was a lie which was likely to come up regularly. Besides it would be a difficult lie to sustain as he couldn't do any form of metamorphamagnus transformations.

"No, I'm not. My eyes are caused... by a vision correction spell, it was done by a friend of the family," Harry replied expanding on his original negative answer of shaking his head. He was rather proud of that answer as every single part of it was true. Lilith was a friend and he was family, so hence friend of the family.

Nymphadora seemed to sag, almost literately at the news. "Oh well, it was a long shot anyway," she sighed and Harry looked at her wondering why that was so important to her.

Obviously he wasn't very good at concealing the question from his face because Laura easily picked it up and answered, "She's just a little off put that your not another Metamorphamagnus like her. They're kinda rare and I think she wants someone else to do magnus-esq stuff with..."

Nymphadora looked at Laura annoyed, "Yes, thank you miss 'blurt-out-Tonk's-private-business-to-complete-strangers'."

Harry coughed, feeling somewhat awkward. He was saved from the awkwardness for about five seconds as someone suddenly dumped half a ton of fabric over his head before finally pulling his head through, it was now Harry's turn to glare at the assistant before turning his attention back to the girls. "Well... we don't have to be complete strangers..." Harry suggested, he pressed onwards even though the pink haired girl... Nymphadora... was looking at him with increasing dubiousness, "my name is Harry Potter," he said offering her his hand.

Harry could quite explain it but the very mention of his name caused Nymphadora to stand up straighter and her eyes... _Sharpened_... for lack of a better word. She gave a friendly smile and shook his hand, "Hello Harry. My name is Nymphadora Tonks but please just call me Tonks. I ca..." the girl shoot a look over at her mother as if wondering if she was in hearing distance. Deciding she was, Tonk's obviously cut off the rest of the sentence to Harry's curiosity and changed topics.

"So this is your first year at Hogwarts is it Harry?" Tonks asked curiously, although from her tone she already knew the answer. Most likely because she was at least a second year.

"Erm.. yes," Harry answered, wincing as the assistant stabbed him with the needle whilst adjusting his robes.

"You're not the only ickle firstie," Tonks teased him friendly and leaned back slightly so Harry could see another girl, "Zabini here is in her first year,"

Harry could see that, if just by the size difference between the girls. "Harry Potter," he stated offering his hands

"Blaise Zabini," The dark haired Italian girl said with a cultured accent shaking his hands, past tonks. Neither of them were able to get off the stools with the swarm of assistants buzzing around them.

"Excellent, you kn.. OW!... damnit, stop poking me!" Tonks scowled yet again at the assistant whom made vague apology noises. Tonks was not satisfied, growled under her breath before returning to the matter at hand.

"As I was saying, me and Laura here are third years at Hogwarts. Our friend over there..." Tonks pointed over to the other end of the shop where a girl was looking at various dresses and some of them Harry had to admit looked rather pretty, "... who is more interested in her dresses than meeting people is Rachel, she's a second year. If you have any problems at Hogwarts come and find us, I have friends in pretty much every house so getting in touch wont be a problem."

Harry frowned. "Why would it be a problem otherwise?" Harry questioned, curious to know something before he actually started term.

"Ah... Each of the four houses...Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor are fairly isolationist. People from those houses tend to stick with each other and you'll hear all sort of silly rumors about this and this house being evil. Usually Slytherin," Tonks explained, anything to distract her from the tedium of getting these cursed robes adjusted. She could swear they'd done the same parts over and over again. If she was being used as a test dummy for some new shop assistants she would be extremely displeased and demand... a ...discount for blood spilled. Yes.

"Why is Slytherin evil?" Harry wondered.

"It's not!" Tonks practically exploded, "Just because its the house of ambition and we've had a few ambitious dark lords here and there, the whole house gets a negative reputation."

Tonks scowled for a long moment before turning and poking her finger right at the tip of Harry's nose dramatically, or at least that's what she tried to do. Unfortunately this was Nymphadora Tonks and with her co-ordination she managed to stick her finger up his nose. "Yuck...Icky..." She expressed her mature opinion as she recoiled her hand in disgust immediately, whilst Harry yelped in pain. She then preceded to wipe her finger clean on one of the assistant's cloaks, said assistant retaliated by 'accidentally' poking her again.

"Charming Tonks truly charming..." Laura muttered at her friends actions.

Tonks scowled but focused on Harry, "Anyway, as I was going to say. If you want an evil house look no further than..." she pointed her finger at Laura, " Hufflepuff! They're evil, they're all judges, social workers and disgruntled paper pushers! All positions of power! Forget the minister of magic, an army of paper pushers who all know each other and can cover each over has vastly more power than any minister of magic, especially when backed up by judges and social workers who can make your life that much more awkward!"

Laura raised an eyebrow skeptically at Tonks, "You sound like something out of the Quibber," she spoke quickly and dismissively. Too quickly for Tonks liking and the older pink haired girl settled into dark thoughts of Hufflepuff world domination... and chocolate frogs. Her stomach growled.

"Are we done yet?!" Tonks snapped down at the assistant, her patience reaching its absolute limit.

The shop assistant finished putting in the last few pins and then looked up at her, "Yes," he answered.

Tonks eyes lit up and she jumped down off the stool, stepping on the edge of her cloak in the process and nearly landing flat on her face. However by some miracle she managed to stay on her feet and cried out triumphantly at the achievement.

"You are also done dear," Madam Malkin informed Harry, who turned to look at her surprised. Before he knew what was going on there was a quick exchange of coins and Harry found himself the proud owner of a set of Hogwarts robes which he was now holding in two bags. He had the distinct feeling that Madam Malkin didn't want him in her shop for a moment longer than needed.

"Well I suppose this is goodbye for now," Tonks said walking up behind Harry, "we've got to stay her waiting for Blaise and the rest of our friends to arrive so... I'll see you at Hogwarts."

"Bye Harry," Laura said coyly.

"Goodbye," Blaise nodded politely, still stuck up on the stool.

"Bye," Harry waved as he left the shop with his purchases, the girls watching him leave. Tonks watching him with a sharp eye until he was out of sight, it was noted in a corner of her mind that the room temperature seemed to rise once he'd left the shop, she thought for a moment before seeking out the other member of their group.

"Rach! Why didn't you come over and introduce yourself?" Tonk demanded as she strode over to the other girl.

"I was looking at the dresses," Rachel answered a bit confused and on the defensive as she pointed at a rack of very nice dresses, "why? Who was that?" Rachel questioned curiously.

"That was bloody Harry Potter you twit!"

"Ah..." Rachel nodded in understanding before frowning, "who the hell is he?"

Tonks started to say something and then stopped, snapping her jaw shut.

"It's not important," Laura reassured their muggleborn friend, "and Tonks here needs to calm down. Perhaps she'd like some nice ice cream?"

"She really would..." Tonks the living pin cushion bemoaned.

* * *

"Ah Harry, I bin wonderin' where yeh'd gotten too," Hagrid stated cheerfully from where he was waiting outside the shop, "Did yeh get yer robes?" 

Harry lifted the bags containing the robes to show him, that yes he had actually gotten the robes he'd meant to get.

"Ah good good. I'll carry 'em," He offered and Harry passed the bags to Hagrid without a complaint, the bags practically disappearing between Hagrid's huge dustbin sized hands.

"Hagrid... Do you know anything about the Hogwart houses? I mean I was talking to someone earlier and they said the houses were fairly separate..." Harry rambled slightly, not exactly the smoothest at extracting information without Lilith's near constant encouragement and instruction. Speaking of Lilith, Harry pondered were precisely she had gone. Her presence lingered, just not in the immediate vicinity.

Hmmm...

"Ah, yer int'rested in the houses? Well... There's four of 'em. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Yer right tha' the houses tend ter remain separate, each house is based on a diff'rent thin'. Gryffindor is the house of the Brave, yeh can't go much wrong there. Hufflepuff is the house of the loyal, now people say Hufflepuff's a load of duffers but it was my house and it was a good house..."

"One of the girls I meet in the store was in Hufflepuff," Harry commented, "she seemed pretty nice"

"Yeah... where was I? Ah Ravenclaw... House of the smart, clever people 'em Ravenclaws but some of them are trouble makers," Hagrid scowled slightly towards the end.

"Last house is Slytherin, nothin' good ever came out of tha' house Harry. Mark my words..." Hagrid opinionated, "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-know-who was one."

"How do you get chosen for each of the houses?" Harry wondered, how could they decide if you were brave, loyal or whatever

"Nah... Can't say... big secret that is... yep," Hagrid answered firmly before nodding his head at the shop besides them, "Time ter get yer books Harry,"

The pair walk into the shop and start picking up books. The shopping in the book store went pretty much without incident except for when they bumped into another boy, one carrying a book titled 'Battlemagic'. It became obvious that Hagrid and the boy knew each other as tension in the air suddenly became thick enough to cut through. Fortunately the boy seemed to shrug the incident off and walked away ignoring Hagrid's eyes digging into his back. Harry had wanted to ask what that was about but something told him that it probably should be left alone.

After they left the shop Hagrid seemed to pick up slightly, especially after looking over the sheer number of books that Harry had purchased. "Bloody Hell, I've seen Ravenclaws with less books, not that there ain' nothin' wrong with Ravenclaw," Hagrid amended after getting several people outside the store glaring at him, Harry presumed they were all Ravenclaws.

Hagrid shook his head and smiled down at Harry, clapping a hand down on his shoulder. "Yer smart… a lot like your mother. She could have been a Ravenclaw if it weren't for that fiery temper of 'ers."

The pair began walking down the street interrupted only when Lilith swooped down from the roof's of the shops to land gracefully on Harry's shoulders. Hagrid looked at the raven with a knowing glance and nodded to himself as if confirming something. It wasn't a look that Harry was particularly happy with and he wondered if Lilith had blown her cover at some point in time. He was about to say something when he found himself distract by Lilith or rather the fact he could feel that Lilith was being very, very distracted by something.

Following his companions eyes, he could see that the Mazoku's attention was focused on a girl standing just in the shadows by the entrance of another street. Now that he was looking at her he could also sense something... familiar about her. Something inside of her called to him, it became obvious that he was not the only one feeling the sensation as the girls eyes suddenly snapped up to meet his. Green gazed into blue and something passed between them.

"Hagrid. Who's that girl? Does she go to Hogwarts too?" Harry felt the words coming out of his mouth as he stared at the girl, not wanting to take his eyes off of her.

Hagrid followed his line of sight and then suddenly his posture changed, "Yeah... she goes to Hogwarts bu' she ain' the type of person yeh should be with" He states firmly with authority, trying to knock Harry away from that line of questioning with some firmness in his voice.

Harry frowned, looking at Hagrid as he recognized the tactic but already making his mind up to find more out about the girl, "Why not? She looks sad."

"Why not... why not..." Hagrid muttered desperately under his breath as he tried to think of something "OH LOOK! We're here at the wand shop" Hagrid exclaimed loudly attracting most of the streets attention to him, "quickly now, inside."

Harry found himself being practically shoved into the shop and had to struggle not trip. Lilith violently ruffled her feathers not liking having her observations cut short but settled down on Harry's shoulder, although her could feel her wishing much negative will towards Hagrid. Harry paid little attention to that and looked around the shop, it seemed that they had come in during the middle of a conversation between a girl and a man.

_'That girl we saw was very interesting...'_ Lilith muttered into his mind, Harry wanted to ask what had been going on but knew she wasn't in the mood to answer by her mental tone.

"... blame. Hardly my fault," The red haired girl stated firmly as she stood in front of a man. Harry presumed that the man was the shop owner.

"Miss Fortune, this is your seventh wand in two years, you do understand my concern," the man _'Ollivander'_ Lilith filled in, spoke, "A wand is a piece of art meant to last a lifetime. Not to be treated like a disposable cauldron!"

'How do you know his name?' Harry questioned mentally as he watched the conversation in front of him unfold.

_'What do you think I've been doing whilst you were shopping?' _Lilith asked rhetorically.

'Feeding...' Harry replied dryly.

_'Besides that... I've been scouting the shops out, there are several interesting items and characters here. A lot of them down that Alleyway where that interesting girl was standing...'_ Lilith answered, actually feeling in the mood to be helpful for once but her tone implying this was the last question she'd take at the moment. Of course she failed completely to mention what the interesting items were but Harry was long getting used to things like that.

"Hey, I'm the only reason you stay in business. So quit complaining and make with the wand matching," The girl shooed him and then paused in thought, "try unicorn hair this time. Ten inches."

Ollivander raised an eyebrow but went to get one, "Dare I ask what happened to your last wand?"

The girl looked shifty, "It... exploded," she said slowly.

He looked at her.

"Accidentally," She clarified.

He still looked at her.

"Really!" she promised

He walked up to her and just wordlessly handed her the new wand.

The girl waved the unicorn hair wand around a bit and some vague sparks come out the end much to Harry's interest. "Hmmm... that's not quite right," Echoed both Ollivander and the girl, they looked at each other startled. Obviously whatever had happened was not the desired effect.

"The birch isn't right, yew's probably better. Damn... I've done this so many times I actually know whats going on," she muttered under her breath.

Ollivander handed her the yew wand and with a single flick of her wrist she blew up half the shop, nearly causing Harry to have a heart attack. "Ha! Bang on," the girl cried out in triumph as pieces of box and stuffing fluttered down all around her.

Ollivander just looked mournfully at the devastation, "Some times I think you just come back to demolish my shop..." he sighed.

"Now that's just being silly," the girl exclaimed, "So yew and unicorn hair comes to... what nine galleons?"

"Nine galleons and five sickles," Ollivander corrected.

"Right... bloody rip off," the girl muttered as she dug around in her pocket for some loose change, counting it quickly with an experience that showed the was used to handling money a lot and then dumping the correct amount on the counter.

"I'll see you around Olli!" The girl stated as she saluted him at the door before turning around and nodding to someone that Harry couldn't see, "Hey, Twy!"

Harry's own wand selection seemed slightly more mundane compared to the girl before him and seemed to take a hell of a lot longer as Harry went through wand after wand. Strangely despite the increasing destruction to his shop Ollivander seemed to be getting more and more excited at this 'tricky customer'. Eventually, Harry picked up the destined eleven inches holly and phoenix feather wand, brother to the wand which gave him the scar on his forehead. Out of curiosity, Lilith pushed him to ask if it was possible to have a second wand. A question which seemed to surprise the wand maker before he responded that no it was quite impossible to have two wands, as only ministry aurours were allowed to have more than one wand.

Not knowing what an aurour was or any of the wizarding world laws were Harry left the issue allow, if just to get away from the creepy gaze that Ollivander seemed to have. He also didn't like the number of times Ollivander's eyes shot to the raven resting on Harry's shoulders, despite the fact Lilith had done nothing that would give her away since they had arrived in the shop. Lilith herself had noted that Ollivander was one to watch, although the same could be said of several of the 'interesting' people she had observed today, it was heartening to see that there were still pieces of darkness that hung around even after the world had been so butchered by the dragons.

Once they'd left the shop Hagrid stopped him, "Look Harry, I was plannin' on gettin' yeh a pet but I finds out yeh already got that charmin' raven," Hagrid explained with a glint in his eye as he looked at his young charge. Something Harry had done was pleasing him for some reason, Lilith noted. The giant was giving off a fair bit of happiness much to her disgust.

"It's not an ordinary raven is it?" Hagrid said smiling knowingly and perhaps a little creepily. Hagrid didn't do stealthy interrogation very well.

"er... I..."

"It's not a problem," Hagrid laughed as he clapped a hand down on Harry's shoulder, like he did every time he wanted to reassure him, "I used ter be the same at yer age, used ter think exotic pets were far better than those duffer cats or owls or toads that everyone else had."

Hagrid huffed as he thought about it, "Still do ter tell truth. So I got yeh this," Hagrid reached into his coat pocket, rummaging around for a long while before passing him a large book.

The book was covered in leather as was typical with a lot of the wizarding world books but this particular book had no title on the front but instead had the outline of a silver two tailed fox on it, a kitsune.

Harry looked up at Hagrid questioningly.

"It's a book on spirits, mostly thin's like kitsunes and spirit ravens like yer bird. It'll help yer take care o' it better as some o' these pets can be a bit tricky if yer don't know how ter handle 'em proper and if yeh ever have any problems with it come see me," Hagrid stated pointing his thumb to himself, "I've dealt with the like before."

Harry nodded and smiled gratefully, "Thanks Hagrid!"

"Heh, it's no problem. Oooh, before I forget, yeh tell everyone that I got yeh that bird," Hagrid said pointing to the raven, "Most people ain' happy about adoptin' wild magical creatures, they just don't understand... Even with somethin' as harmless as a spirit raven. They'd try and kill the poor thin'. So tell 'em I got yeh it, yeh got that?"

Harry nodded.

"Good good, now how abou' I get yeh a butterbeer before we head home alright?"


End file.
